


Fragile Like Glass

by ABookAndACoffee



Series: Throne of Glass coffee shop AU [2]
Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Complete, Elide is a film student, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Lorcan is a barista, Slow Burn, and make coffee, some side rowaelin, the cadre show up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-08-22 12:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16597715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABookAndACoffee/pseuds/ABookAndACoffee
Summary: Elide Lochan finds a new coffee shop to work at while she completes her thesis. Lorcan, a barista, catches her eye.





	1. Chapter 1

In the college town of Orynth, there were enough cafés that Elide need never run into anyone she knew.  
  
It wasn’t that her social circle was particularly large, just that she had a lot to accomplish in the coming months, and the fewer distractions, the better. Her cousin Aelin had recommended a place near campus that wasn’t so hipster she couldn’t afford it, and apparently had a good amount of twinkly lights. When Elide reminded her that’s not what people looked for in a café, Aelin had shrugged and said she judged cafés on that whether they liked it or not.   
  
But Aelin also knew that Elide needed a place where she could concentrate and write and plan, and that was good enough for her.   
  
The cool autumn air bit into the few places where Elide’s skin was bare between her hat and thick scarf, causing her cheeks and nose to turn a rosy pink. She breathed out to watch the puff of white, and a sigh of relief accompanied it. She may have signed up for one of the most prestigious, grueling MFA programs in the country, but it was miles and years away from her past. There was a sort of freedom in being able to leave her house without having to explain where she was going, to being able to walk up to a counter and pay for a coffee with her own money, knowing that her uncle wouldn’t check her bank account or receipts.   
  
Elide spied the café Aelin had named on a side street. It was only a few blocks away from campus, but far enough away that it seemed like a different world. There was a sharp divide in the town between those who were natives and those who came for the university. Aelin fell somewhere in between, and when she had extended an invitation to Elide to come visit when she toured the campus, Elide knew it was a place she could turn into a home.   
  
Elide walked into the cafe and shook off the afternoon chill. Laden with a backpack and a canvas bag stuffed with newly-checked out library books, she scanned the space for a free table. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and sighed in relief when she saw a table near the front, with a view of the street. The line at the register was long, her arms, feet, and ankle ached, and the only hope she had of warming up was a huge cup of coffee she could wrap her hands around. Luckily, the table was also near a fireplace, so she would get the best of both worlds: a window where she could watch the world pass by, and the security of a table to herself.   
  
She was there for the long haul; with two semesters to go before she was supposed to graduate with an MFA in film, there was no more messing around. That meant long nights in the library or a coffee shop like this, but either way, she didn’t want to stay at home. Home was noisy, a cramped space where men stood on the street corner outside and yelled at her, but it was all she could afford. And all things considered, her studio apartment with no sunlight and the mice - she preferred to think of them as mice instead of rats, though she had no evidence of the rodents’ cuteness level - was a much nicer place to be than where she really came from.  
  
Elide set her backpack on a chair with a thump, perched the canvas bag on the tabletop, making sure it wouldn’t topple over, then made her way to the register. Three men worked behind the counter, barking out orders and names. The place was all warm wooden surfaces and chairs deep enough to sink in. Large potted plants had a prime space in the windows. And indeed, there were plenty of sparkly lights to be had.   
  
The line slowly inched forward, and Elide tuned out everything around her that wasn’t related to work. The sounds of chatter and the noise from the steamer on the espresso machine meant she’d need headphones next time, and she made a mental note to bring them. She’d also need to come a bit earlier, since every table but hers was occupied. Already in her head she was writing paragraphs, thinking about the sources she needed to complete her literature review, dreading reading her advisor’s comments on her latest draft, and making a list of terms she needed to add to her personal glossary.   
  
“Miss?”   
  
Elide blinked. There were no more customers in front of her, and a tall man with white hair and tattoos stood behind the register watching her. Looking around, Elide wondered if muscles and tattoos were a requirement for employment there. The other two men who were making drinks were also large, arms covered in tattoos, with more than one hair-tie in use.   
  
The white-haired man beckoned her forward, firm but not impatient.   
  
“Hi,” Elide said, reaching for her wallet. “I’ll just take a coffee. Dark roast. Does that come with free refills?” His apron was embroidered with his name, Rowan. It was fitting, she thought, since he was nearly as large as a tree. She wondered if his friends were also named after trees, if perhaps this place were more hipster than Aelin had indicated.  
  
“Indeed,” the man said. He waited for her to insert her card into the machine and turned to fill up a cup of coffee.   
  
One of the other baristas tapped Rowan on the arm and took the cup from him. The other man was nearly Rowan’s opposite. Dark where Rowan was fair, his long black hair was pulled back in a pony tail. Where Rowan had tattoos along the side of his face, the other man had them along his arms, dark swirls that made some pattern Elide couldn’t discern. Perhaps they meant something. Maybe they were just for the aesthetic. The embroidered name on his apron read Lorcan. There was something fierce in his expression that kept her from talking to him, and she wondered about the origin of his name. Perhaps it had something to do with warriors. She made another mental note to look it up when she got back to her table.   
  
The third man, the one with golden hair and dark bronze skin, ribbed Lorcan and glanced at Elide before using the steamer and drowning out what he was saying. When he turned to hand the latte to another customer, Elide saw that his name was Fenrys. Another name she had never heard, though her curiosity wasn’t as piqued with him as it had been with Lorcan.  
  
It felt odd that she knew their names and they didn’t know hers, as if she were watching them live their lives from behind a lens. Always the voyeur, never the one to experience life. That was how Elide had grown up, and how she continued to see the world. As an observer, not a participant. It was fine, really. It was ok. Or it had been. But now…  
  
Elide wondered what Lorcan would do if she went up to the counter, leaned against it and batted her eyelashes, curled her hair around a finger. She thought often about what it would be like, to be one of those girls. Would he take her home? Would he tell her about his life, ask about hers? Perhaps he would kiss her and lift her up until she had to wrap her legs around his waist. There was no way she could kiss him without him either bending in half or picking her up. She couldn’t possibly take him to her place, it would have to be his. It must have been dark, sparse, all leather and-  
  
“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice came from behind Elide, and she mumbled an apology as she stepped away from the register. She’d been daydreaming again, and about the man pouring her coffee. It wasn’t that she was unused to  living in her head. She just tried to avoid doing it when she was in public.   
  
The dark-haired one - Lorcan - put her cup of coffee on the counter and glanced at her, briefly. “It’s ready.”  
  
“Thank you.” Elide took the cup and looked up at Lorcan, but he had already turned away and was talking to Rowan again.   
  
All hopes of Lorcan ever looking at Elide in the way she wanted him to were dashed. This was why she preferred movies to real life. At least if she were writing or directing a film, she could make everything happen the way she wanted it to. She would catch the eye of the hero, she would gallop across a field to rescue her lover, she would make the movies she wanted and all of her idols would be given the respect they deserved, not shoved to the side because they were women. Most importantly, she would not live in a hovel or be ignored by handsome men or have an uncle who forced her to grow up a shut-in, living a life that was at least half fictional.   
  
But that was the rub. Elide wanted movies to fill in the gaps where her life had let her down, but the movies reminded her that most of what she loved wasn’t real.  
  
Elide walked away from the counter, careful to keep her balance and not slosh the hot liquid from the white porcelain. When she reached her table she found a small spot for the cup, then sat and began unloading her bag of books. Some of them had come from interlibrary loan, though the university ensured that most of the materials needed for her program would be available. However, when one was studying French New Wave cinema, and specifically the women who directed those films, it was still difficult to get ahold of the reference material she needed.   
  
With her stack of books in the order in which she thought she would need them and her cup of coffee at her side, Elide opened her laptop. She would spend the next few hours - or months, really - reading her sources and making notes, trying to write something that would both meet the satisfaction of her committee, and meet her own approval. It was notoriously difficult to do both, she’d heard, but she was determined. Then, if she received the grants she had applied for, Elide would travel for a while to complete her own project, the one she had been dreaming about creating since she had first watched _Beauty and the Beast_ when she was a child.  
  
Hours passed, and the tables around her emptied and then filled again with new people. Some of them were with friends, or lovers, and none of them bothered to glance at Elide with anything more than an appreciative eye. Her long dark hair nearly fell to her waist, and she had taken to wearing oversized sweaters with leggings. Aelin called it her uniform. It didn’t matter though, not when she only ever spent her time in classrooms and libraries.   
  
Elide drank the last of the coffee from her cup and set the porcelain back down with a clink. It had gone cold and was not exactly delicious that way, but it had done its job, and would continue doing its job for a while.   
  
Elide flexed her ankle underneath the table. Walking over slick, rainy sidewalks made her more cautious, and the muscles in her legs were complaining about the extra effort, not to mention being in the same seat without moving for hours. It was time to take advantage of the free refills.  
  
A giant arm came into her line of sight and set down a large white coffee mug. “I saw you were running low.” The voice was deep and warm, and sent a frisson of excitement up through her core.  
  
Elide followed the arm, with its already-familiar tattoos, up to a dark, serious face.  
  
“Lorcan,” Elide said in surprise.   
  
He cocked an eyebrow at her, and Elide wanted to crawl under her table.   
  
She pointed at his apron. “I remember details. I saw your name, earlier. I mean, thanks.” Elide turned back to her laptop and placed her fingertips on the keys. Nothing came to mind. What should she type? What was her thesis even about? Elide could feel her cheeks grow warm as she sat there like a mannequin pretending to play at life.   
  
“What’s your name?” Lorcan crossed his arms and looked at her, his eyes glancing over her books, tilting his head so he could read the titles.   
  
“My name? Um, it’s Elide. Elide Lochan.” She glanced down at her cup. “Thanks again, for that. Aren’t I supposed to go get it though?” She looked around the café for the counter. “I can go get it myself.”  
  
“You looked like you were in the zone.” Lorcan stood straight, his arms crossed. He might have been talking about the weather or the news, for all the inflection he allowed in his voice.  
  
“Were you watching me?” Elide wouldn’t have noticed if he had been watching her, and she realized after she asked the question that it was rather embarrassing, to call him out for paying too much attention to her.  
  
It was Lorcan’s turn to be caught off-guard. “Not really. I mean, we are having a slow moment and I had to go around and clear some tables off.” He gestured to the tables around her where people had left their mugs and plates with nothing left but crumbs. “I figured you were running low, since you’ve been here for a while.”  
  
“Well, thanks.” Elide considered Lorcan. Seated, she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. They were startlingly kind, considering the way he spoke, his dismissive manner towards her earlier.   
  
A minute passed, and neither of them said anything. Elide was fairly certain that in a movie of this scene, she would have been far more witty and alluring. As it was, she sat and tried not to think about the fact that her face was rather near his crotch. Not the most romantic position, for sure. A flush crept across her cheeks. Again.  
  
“So, what are you studying?” Lorcan uncrossed his arms and reached for the book on the top of her stack. “ _Masculine singular : French new wave cinema_?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re a film student?”  
  
Elide watched Lorcan flip through the pages, and felt suddenly exposed. “Yes. I am. I’m doing a thesis, for independent study credits, and then I’m hoping to go film something.”  
  
“Something?” Lorcan set the book down on the table.   
  
Elide nodded, but refused to elaborate.   
  
“ _Et tu parles français_?”  
  
“ _Il le faut, pour comprendre sans sous-titres, n’est-ce pas_?”  
  
Lorcan nodded slowly and grinned. “So, Elide Lochan, can I get you anything else?”  
  
“No, thanks.” Elide turned back to her computer, realizing that she was indeed there for work. Class. School. She had other priorities, other things to think about that had nothing to do with tall, dark men who looked like they could have her screaming their name all night.   
  
She heard rather than saw Lorcan turn to walk away. Glancing back at him, she spoke again before she could think about it. “I’ll be here again tomorrow.”  
  
Lorcan grinned and nodded, and walked back to the counter.   
  
Elide slumped back in her seat, covering her face with her hands. He didn’t care that she would be back. Did he?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide visits the coffee shop a second time to see if Lorcan will remember her.

Elide’s alarm went off early, at 7am, which was early as far a she was concerned when she had stayed at the cafe until 8pm writing, then gone home and wracked up another four hours of reading and note-taking. She usually did her best work in the morning, and tried to stick to the schedule she developed after attending a workshop about writing productivity. That was, of course, why she was so eager to be up and working at the coffee shop.  
  
However, it was a bit difficult to get hyped up about writing when Elide knew her advisor was going to sniff and tear it apart without a second thought, but she was passionate enough about her topic to try. There were few things that she felt she understood about the world, but movies were one of them. And she was not only going to understand them, she was going to make them her own.   
  
Elide threw off her blankets, tucked her feet into her slippers, and slowly put her weight on her feet. She shifted back and forth from one foot to the other, testing out the old injury, flexing it the way her physical therapist had taught her. Elide had moved on from needing regular appointments, but it was a part of her that required more attention than it had before. She had been to enough self-care seminars and meetings on campus to look at it as one more thing in the list of habits she had developed every day.   
  
The books and papers Elide hauled with her nearly everywhere were sitting by the door, ready to go be put to work again. But first, a shower. It was perhaps de rigueur for college students to go around in their pajamas and look like they hadn’t slept in a month, but Elide had no intention of going out that way.   
  
In the shower, Elide considered her options. There was the cafe she had been visiting before, the one that was attached to a large bookstore chain. It had its perks, namely the bookstore, but also had a more corporate feel to it that wasn’t conducive to creative thinking. The books were distracting. The barista refused to remember her order, and acted like she was being asked to give up her first-born child every time Elide asked for a refill.   
  
Then there was the place she had gone the day before, the one with the baristas and the tattoos. The sparkly lights and the fireplace and the Lorcan. It was a couple of blocks farther from her apartment, but she could tell herself she was supporting local business, at least. Yes, that’s why she would go there.   
  
After she showered she pulled a comb through her hair, cursing the knots that appeared in the night, wondering if she should just chop it all off. When she was satisfied that she was not only ready to leave the house, but fit to be seen by strangers who included Lorcan, Elide grabbed her bag. Remembering an afternoon with Aelin a couple of months before, she reached into a small side pocket and pulled out a tube of pale pink lipstick. Aelin had reassured her that it would be barely noticeable, but Elide had still shoved it in that pocket and forgotten about it.   
  
Opening the lid and twisting the tube, Elide looked from the lipstick to the mirror and back again. Shrugging, she swiped a thin layer on, rubbed her lips together, and then threw it back in her bag as if she were hiding the evidence, as if she weren’t now going to walk out of the house with it literally written all over her face.   
  
The walk to the shop was short, yet filled with so many fantasies about what she would say to Lorcan that she nearly walked right past it.   
  
Elide imagined walking up to the counter, smiling, and Lorcan knowing her order right away - no, it didn’t matter that she only drank black coffee, the point was that he _remembered_ \- and then he would offer to take it to her table. Casual conversation would flow naturally and she would be charming and cute and intelligent. Lorcan would definitely not be intimidated by any academic vocabulary that slipped out, and he would be smart and kind and would want to know all about her research.   
  
In some of her fantasies she walked around the counter and pressed him against it and then he lifted her onto it while clutching her ass, but it was probably no good to have those kind of thoughts that early in the day, in public.   
  
Elide nearly bounded into the coffee shop, and forced herself to check on her table before looking at the counter to see who was working. The cafe wasn’t nearly as busy as the day before, and her table was free. She flexed her ankle gently and made her way over to it to set her bags down. She breathed in the scent of coffee and pastries, warming her hands over the fireplace.   
  
Elide finally allowed herself to look up at the register. Standing at the register was one man, the one whose apron read Fenrys. It would be silly for her to wait for Lorcan to show up before she ordered, so Elide made her way to the counter. Fenrys was handsome, probably more so than Lorcan, she reasoned. As if she were settling. But either way, she could certainly find a way to fit him into her daydreams.  
  
Fenrys turned from the espresso machine and nodded at her. “We’ll be with you in just a moment.” He turned back to the machine and yelled over the noise. “Lorcan, register!”  
  
Elide’s heart skipped a beat and she clutched her wallet. What was she here to do? Order something? How did she even take her coffee? What if the machine didn’t work or she forgot her PIN or-  
  
Lorcan came from the backroom, a space that was separated from the front by a curtain stretched across a doorway. He glared at Fenrys, but then Fenrys jerked his head in her direction. “Customer.” He grinned. “Like I said.”  
  
Lorcan’s face softened slightly when he looked at Elide. She wondered for a moment if any fantasy she could have ever had about him could have been as good as that moment, when he looked at her and the world stopped and he made her glad to have come.   
  
“Hi,” he said, striding to the counter. “Elide. You said you would be back.”  
  
Elide nodded. “Yeah, I did say that. I have a lot of work to do.”  
  
“So, what will you have?” Lorcan raised an eyebrow in an arch so high, Aelin would have been jealous. Well, there was one fantasy out the window. Either he didn’t remember her order, or didn’t care, or a combination of the two. She was probably lucky he had even remembered her name.  
  
“Coffee, dark roast, please.”  
  
Lorcan nodded and gestured to the register. “You know what to do.”  
  
Elide fumbled for her card and stuck it in the machine, nearly missing because she was too busy watching Lorcan’s backside as he turned away to get a cup for her coffee. A soft laugh came from down the counter, and Elide looked over to see Fenrys shaking his head at the latte he was making.   
  
Turning her attention back to Lorcan, she slid her card back into her wallet before taking the cup.   
  
“Let me know when you need more. Just catch my eye and I’ll head over with a fresh cup.”  
  
“Thanks.” She took another breath. “Lorcan.”  
  
He didn’t exactly smile, but… his eyes sparkled as he said, “You’re welcome, Elide.”   
  
The next customer approached the counter as Elide turned away, and she heard him spit out a gruff, “What’ll you have?”   
  
Elide walked back to her table with the steaming cup and tried to remember why she was there. It definitely had something to do with school, with her impending deadlines and - Marguerite Duras! She needed to get back to Marguerite before she lost track of her future entirely.   
  
After opening her laptop and checking her email - making sure to respond to the one from her advisor asking about word count right away - Elide spread the rest of her materials around her. She stacked the books in the order she thought she might need them, pulled out highlighters and tabs to mark important passages, and shoved her earbuds in. The cafe was playing The xx, but she couldn’t take any chances. It could get busy, and she didn’t need the distractions.   
  
She came here to work, not to think about hot baristas who kind-of sort-of smiled at her. It was basic customer service, obviously. Lorcan probably just figured that if she was going to be a regular, he might as well be polite. And Fenrys had called for him because he was already busy. There were logical explanations for everything, though she was discovering a talent for overthinking every social interaction she had, when she wanted it to mean more than it probably did.  
  
The next hours flew by in a flow of work that consumed Elide’s attention. She wrote furiously, her fingers flying over the keyboard until she realized that she was somewhere near completing her literature review. The coffee went down like water, and she didn’t notice when Lorcan brought her a fresh cup, merely wondered at how the same cup could have remained warm after all that time.    
  
By the time the sky grew dark, Elide hardly knew that the day had passed. Her stomach growled and she realized that she hadn’t eaten breakfast, or lunch, for that matter. She looked up and blinked, adjusting herself to reality that had nothing to do with cinematography or mise en scene or the feminine gaze.   
  
Someone cleared their throat behind her, and Elide turned, startled. Lorcan was leaning against the fireplace, poking at the logs with one arm bracing himself against the mantle.   
  
“Working hard?” he asked. He threw another log in the fire, grabbed an iron poker and settled the log into place without looking at her.  
  
“Yeah.” Elide looked back at her computer, the word count that should have been her only consideration. “I’m working on my thesis.”  
  
“On film,” Lorcan chimed in. “ _En français, si je m’en souviens correctement_?”   
  
“Yeah. Oui.”   
  
Lorcan grinned.   
  
Elide shook her head. “Yeah, I get a lot done when I’m here. My apartment can be pretty noisy.”  
  
Lorcan glanced around at the crowded tables of people chatting and laughing. Cups clinked against plates, the espresso machine blasted, and a steady stream of music came through the speakers. Chairs were pushed across the floor, fingertips tapped over keyboards and turned the pages of books.  
  
“In comparison, this is nice,” Elide explained. “It’s just the sound of people being together.” She shrugged. “Human sounds are different. There’s harmony in here. At my apartment it’s more discordant, which makes it hard for me to concentrate. There are a lot of studies about effective writing processes, but I’ve just had to find my own methods with time.”   
  
“Writing process?” Lorcan asked. “You’ve read about this? So you read research to find out how to… write research?”  
  
“Can I not be familiar with more than one area of study?” Elide turned back to her computer. “Thanks for the coffee.” If the next words out of Lorcan’s mouth were something about how much he knew about academic writing, or French, or if he recommended she watch Tarantino films, she was going to lose it.   
  
Instead, Lorcan circled around to stand across from her, bracing his hands on the back of the empty chair on the other side of the table.  
  
“Where did you learn to speak French? Your accent is amazing.” There was no irony in his voice, no hint of mockery. Lorcan seemed genuine in his question.  
  
Elide settled back against her chair, moving her hands away from her keyboard. “I moved around quite a bit, with my uncle. We lived in Quebec for a while, then Montreal.”  
  
Lorcan nodded. “That explains the vowels.”  
  
“My vowels? You haven’t heard me speak enough French to be familiar with my vowels.”   
  
“Do you want me to be?” he asked. “More familiar?” Elide stuttered for a response but Lorcan cut in. “I have an ear for those things. I’ve traveled around my fair share.”   
  
It was the perfect invitation to ask Lorcan about himself. He seemed like he could be easily spooked into clamming up and shutting her off, like a feral kitten. A giant, tattoo-covered, rough kitten whose exterior belied kindness. Elide didn’t really need a reason to be distracted from her work, and she didn’t know if she could stomach more of her fantasies about him being dashed. She doubted it.   
  
Then again, part of self-care was relaxing a bit and being social, wasn’t it? Elide was fairly certain one of those workshops had explained just how much regimented fun she was supposed to have, so she could tick that off the list of things she had accomplished that day.  
  
“Where have you traveled?” Before he could answer her question, Elide spoke again. “You can sit. If you want.” She pulled her backpack from the empty seat and it landed on the floor with an embarrassing thud.  
  
Lorcan wiped his hands on his apron, then rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. “I’m not sure. My boss is going to be back any minute.” He glanced back at the curtain he had come from earlier.   
  
“Oh, it’s fine,” Elide said, and she leaned over to put the bag back in the seat. “I’m sure you have a lot of work to do and I do too so it’s fine, just fine.”   
  
Lorcan took the bag from Elide’s hands and set it back on the floor. He considered for a moment before spinning the chair around and sat so he straddled it, his arms draped over the back. “I grew up in the South,” Lorcan began. “But as soon as I could, I left and went all over. I was only 16 when I left home so it was rough at first. But I spent a couple of years in France, then Morocco, Argentina, Brazil. Can’t say I’ve been to Canada yet.”   
  
Elide nodded. “So, what did you do in all those places? I’ve been around a lot but not by myself. This is the first time I’ve been on my own.” She wrapped her hands around her cup to give them something to do.   
  
“I did what lots of young people do. Saw the sights, ate, drank, fucked.” Lorcan grinned and Elide squirmed in her chair. “Mostly I worked,” he admitted. “Crap jobs, got paid under the table, stayed in hostels. It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds. I didn’t exactly have time to save before I took off. I just went where the work was, through word of mouth, tried to stay out of trouble.”  
  
“Were you lonely?” Elide asked.   
  
“You don’t pull punches, do you, Elide?” Lorcan grinned and leaned forward, tilting the chair on its back two legs.   
  
She smiled softly. “Nope. But maybe I’m just projecting my own experience of traveling onto you.”  
  
“And you’re not going to tell me what you mean by that?”  
  
Elide took a sip of her coffee. “Nope.”  
  
Lorcan nodded his head, understanding he’d been bested into sharing more than he intended, and would get nothing in return. “So, tell me about this project you’re working on.”   
  
“You didn’t answer my question.” Elide set her empty cup down with a clink, and waited. He wanted to joke about getting familiar with her? That’s exactly what he would get.  
  
“Was I lonely? I don’t know, Elide, that feels like pretty serious talk for a day like this. There were people, I was around them, we talked when it was necessary. Or fucked when it wasn’t.”  
  
Elide rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Is that all you can do, try to bring it back to a topic that will shock a young woman such as myself? Nice deflection.”  
  
“Just testing the waters.”   
  
“Don’t worry, you told me more about yourself than you think you did.” Elide looked down and bit back a grin. Talking like this with someone usually had more to do with getting material for creating characters than genuine interest on her part. But now, talking with Lorcan… she found herself wanting to know more not so she could catalogue the experiences, but so she could understand them.  
  
Lorcan chuckled. “Well what about you, Elide. Are you going to tell me about your research and what you’re doing here, or am I going to have to wait all day?”  
  
Elide sat up straighter. She began to talk, hesitant at first, checking to see if Lorcan was still listening, if he seemed interested. She talked for what felt like hours. She explained her project, her research focus, everything but how she came to be interested in film in the first place, how she had discovered her niche. Lorcan listened attentively, asking her to explain a few concepts here and there.   
  
When the bell over the door rang, Elide didn’t notice. It had been doing that all day, after all. But in walked Aelin, who took one look at Elide and who she was talking to, and made a beeline for them.   
  
“Elide! You found the place!” Aelin grinned and unwrapped her scarf. “And a friend, it seems.”  
  
Lorcan stood from his chair and spun it around so Aelin could sit. “I was just leaving. I’m not on break.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away.  
  
“Oh, ok. I’ll see you later, then.” Elide looked down at her computer and realized how much time she had just wasted not working. Well, perhaps it wasn’t wasted… Lorcan walked back behind the counter and said something to Fenrys and Rowan before he went to the backroom and Elide couldn’t follow him with her eyes anymore.  
  
Aelin sat and leaned back in the chair, sporting the definition of a shit-eating grin. “So. How are you? Your friend isn’t very friendly. He didn’t even wait to be introduced, and I know I look particularly cute today. I suppose he was distracted so I’ll forgive him this once.”   
  
“I’m good, thanks for recommending this place. I get a lot of work done here.”  
  
“I’ll bet you do,” Aelin said. She tapped her fingertips on the tabletop and tilted her head.  
  
“And he’s not my friend, we just met,” Elide added.  
  
“Sure.” Aelin reached for Elide’s mug and took a sip. “You need a warm-up,” she said, grimacing. She stood before Elide could protest. “I’ll get it for you.”  
  
The word count on Elide’s file hadn’t increased in over an hour, nor had she read or taken notes or answered emails. What was she even doing here? Elide tried writing a sentence. Explaining her research to Lorcan had given her some inspiration, and she hurried to type it down before she forgot. They were just fragments of thoughts, but they could be fleshed out later. She’d have to tell him about it later. Or tomorrow. Or whenever they talked again.   
  
Elide looked to the register to see if Lorcan had come out from the back, but saw something else instead. Aelin had pushed herself up on the counter and was leaning across it to kiss Rowan in a very public display of affection. Elide looked away. She didn’t know if she could ever do that, ever be that girl. But maybe she didn’t need to be. She watched as Lorcan came out of the back and snapped at Rowan, though neither he nor Aelin gave him the slightest bit of attention. They were lost in one another, and Elide felt a tug in her core. She wasn’t sure if it was jealousy or loneliness, but she knew that she probably wouldn’t mind if Lorcan had reached across the table just to hold her hand.   
  
By the time Aelin came back with two cups of coffee, Elide was thoroughly exhausted. “Can we get that to go? I really need to get something to eat.”   
  
“Sure. Hun, are you ok?”   
  
“Yeah, of course. Just tired and haven’t eaten anything today. I think I need a break from writing.”  
  
“Perfect. Rowan just told me about a new Indian place down the street, if you’re cool with that?” Aelin walked away before Elide could answer. She returned with their coffee in paper cups, and waited for Elide to finish packing up her things.   
  
Before she followed Aelin out the door, Elide threw one last glance at the counter. Rowan was there, wiping the surface absently while he watched Aelin leave. No one was there to watch Elide leave, and she reminded herself that real life was her studies and her film, that that’s what she had come to this city to do. That should have made her feel better, but it just made her feel like she was making excuses.


	3. Chapter 3

Lorcan woke late the next day. He’d been at work until the early hours of the morning, ending it by settling out tabs and wiping down the bar at the hip place across the street from the cafe where he spent his days. Serving expensive drinks to the same people who would get coffee from him the next morning was one way to experience the city. He recognized more than a few of them by now, though his customers mostly saw him as the hand that doled out their caffeine and alcohol.  
  
A steady stream of sunlight came in from the space between his dark, heavy curtains, and Lorcan squinted. He turned over and looked at his alarm clock. There was just enough time to shower and head to the cafe. Most days went like this. Wake, work, sleep. Rinse, repeat.  
  
Being both a bartender and a barista made life busy, but Lorcan didn’t need much besides work.  
  
The itinerant life that he had described to Elide began early, and not in Orynth. He had traveled somewhat aimlessly, that much was true, working odd jobs and barely bothering to remember the names of anyone he met. But he hadn’t left for adventure, or any real aim. He’d just just needed to go.  
  
All of that roaming was before meeting Rowan. Then Rowan led to Fenrys and Maeve, and Lorcan decided that he could try the whole thing where one settled down and signed on a lease that was for the year, rather than month-to-month.  
  
He told himself that Orynth was temporary, that he was just there to save money for a while and then move on. He never made any other friends. Never attended events at the university, or got involved in local concerns. He never went on dates if they seemed like they were interested in anything more than a fun evening. Lorcan still couldn’t tell anyone how to get anywhere in town, or the name of the mayor. Didn’t matter.  
  
Now, five years later, Lorcan wondered what the hell he was doing. This wasn’t the kind of place he had ever wanted to live, and for some reason, those bastards at the coffee shop kept inviting him places and making him feel… comfortable. Most of the jobs Lorcan had before took barely paid his rent, but the tips he received at the bar were more than enough. Having money in the bank made Lorcan think about things like mortgages and down payments and it was nearly enough to make him sick.  
  
Turning his mind to more pleasant matters, Lorcan rolled over on his back and thought about Elide, her hair and the books and the large, dark eyes that looked at him like he might gobble her up. But like she might enjoy it if he did. Elide. She had remembered his name, and he had learned her name, and already that felt like the start of something.  
  
Sitting up in bed, Lorcan shook his head. Chances are she wouldn’t keep coming back, not if he kept bothering her while she was trying to work. And if she did, she wouldn’t want some random creep hanging over her all the time. If Elide came back, he’d ask her how her how she wanted her coffee. Keep it professional. No small talk, no wandering over to the fireplace casually to stoke the fire. And Fenrys - he’d have to make sure that Fenrys knew he was not fucking around.  
  
Yeah, Elide was gorgeous and sexy and smart and he could listen to her talk about movies all day long. She kept him on his toes, for sure. But thinking about spending time with Elide reminded him of why he rarely bothered going on more than one date. She may have been attractive as hell, but she was also something to tie him down further than he already was.  
  
Lorcan stood and made his way to the shower, indulging himself in a few fantasies about what he would do if he could get her alone. Lorcan’s fantasies about people usually involved dark corners and hushed words so they wouldn’t be caught, the sound of zippers and buttons flying. Never, ever did they include a face, and they were never at his apartment. When he thought of Elide and touched himself, he wondered what she would look like waking up in his bed, the way she would smile at him softly, taking her to breakfast afterward and spending a lazy afternoon together.  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
*****  
  
The usual crowd was at the cafe when Lorcan arrived: corporate assistants running in to get their boss’s very complex, very important drinks, women in yoga pants still carrying their mats, a few stray college students who Lorcan was fairly certain never slept. The table where Elide normally sat was occupied by a young mother trying to teach her child the important life lesson of _not_ touching fireplaces.  
  
For the first time in a very long time, Lorcan felt regret. What if Elide really didn’t come back? The worst part was that he didn’t want her to come back so he could get her number and try to figure out exactly how to get her in bed with as little fuss as possible. He wanted her to come back so he could talk to her, ask her how her research was progressing, what her favorite books were, if she had a happy childhood. He wanted to sit across from her and watch her tuck her hair behind her ear, the way she wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee as if it were an anchor.  
  
Lorcan was tying his apron on when Fenrys surprised him with a clap on the shoulder so hard it would have caused a smaller person to stumble.  
  
“Lorcan, late night last night, yeah?” Fenrys didn’t work at the bar, but had no problem spending half his paycheck there.  
  
“Just the usual.” Lorcan turned and began stocking pastries in the display, taking them from the box they were delivered in and setting them in front of the labels with pretentious descriptions that supposedly justified the prices.  
  
“Did you get that woman’s number?”  
  
Lorcan jerked his head up to look at Fenrys. “Which woman?”  
  
“The one who was at the bar last night. Dark hair. Green dress. Stunning. Friend of Aelin and Rowan’s. Apparently she used to do burlesque at Clarisse’s.” Fenrys wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.  
  
Not Elide, then. Lorcan had never seen her at the bar, and suspected that wasn’t really her scene. He scoffed. “No, thanks. You can call her if you want.”  
  
“You sure?” Fenrys’s arched eyebrow was far too pointed for Lorcan to ignore.  
  
“What do you really want, Fenrys?” Lorcan finished emptying the cardboard box and ripped it into pieces before throwing it in the recycling bin.  
  
“Just testing you out, brother. You haven’t been looking at anyone lately and I was just wondering if there was a reason why.” Fenrys walked away to help a woman at the register, but Lorcan knew the conversation wasn’t over.  
  
_Brother_. Fenrys and Rowan used that word freely with each other, but Lorcan had never quite got the hang of their brand of camaraderie. The next couple of hours went by in a blur of customers and orders. Rowan came to work, the owner showed up and went immediately to the back office. Fenrys manned the register while Rowan and Lorcan made drinks. Lorcan kept an eye trained on the front door, nearly burning himself in the process if Rowan hadn’t reminded him to pay the fuck attention to what he was doing.  
  
By the time they had a free moment, the cafe was quieter, and Elide still hadn’t shown up.  
  
Fenrys took advantage of the lull, wandering to where Lorcan was working and nudging him on shoulder as he bussed tables. “Looking for that girl who was here yesterday? And the day before?”  
  
“No.” Dishes clinked together as Lorcan picked them up.  
  
“You didn’t ask me which girl.” Fenrys grinned.  
  
Lorcan glared at him. “I’m not going to play dumb with you, Fenrys. But it was no big deal.” Lorcan carried the bin behind the counter and started taking dirty coffee mugs and plates out of the plastic bin and setting them in the metal sink.  
  
“Well if we have to start making deliveries to our customers at their tables, let me know. I signed on to be a barista, not a waiter.” Fenrys sauntered away, throwing a towel over his shoulder.  
  
“Fucker,” Lorcan muttered under his breath.  
  
“Who’s a fucker?” Elide’s voice chimed from behind him, and Lorcan spun around. There she was, in all her messy, stressed out glory. Her backpack was on one shoulder and she had thrown her canvas bag on the counter, full of books as ever. Lorcan wondered how someone so small didn’t tip over from the sheer weight of all that paper.  
  
“Just Fenrys.” Lorcan strode to the register, wiping his hands on his apron. “He’s always like that. It’s also a term of endearment between us.”  
  
“So can I start calling you a fucker now?”  
  
“Only if it’s a replacement for something like ‘honey’ or ‘dear’.” There was an awkward beat, and then Lorcan spoke. “Coffee? Dark roast?” He was not the type to act like a fool over women, and he certainly didn’t want to start with Elide.  
  
“Yes, please.” Elide took her card out but Lorcan waved her away and turned to pour her drink.  
  
“It’s on the house. Best new customer of the week. It’s like employee of the week, only you get free coffee and you don’t have to work here.”  
  
Elide grinned. “That’s a thing?”  
  
“Sure.” Lorcan set the cup of coffee in front of her on the counter.  
  
“So who was the best new customer last week?”  
  
“Your friend Aelin, apparently.”  
  
Elide snorted. “Then why do I suspect that your favorite new customers at this place get more than just a free coffee?” Elide’s eyes sparkled and she sipped from her mug, watching Lorcan from over the rim.  
  
“Play your cards right, Elide, and you’ll get whatever perks you want.” Lorcan leaned across the counter and then nodded his head towards her usual table. “Looks like your spot is free. It needs cleaned though. I’ll go over with you.”  
  
Lorcan grabbed a rag and rounded the corner. He watched as Elide shifted her weight to one leg and flexed her ankle before picking up her bags. He grabbed her coffee and followed her as she walked to her table. He might have been busy staring at her ass, but he couldn’t help noticing that she favored the ankle she had stretched.  
  
Elide took her seat with a sigh of relief, and Lorcan pointed at her leg with his chin. “Old sports injury?”  
  
She frowned. “Not exactly.” She held her bags in her lap and waited for him to wipe down the table. Apparently, that was all the explanation he would get. As soon as he had finished his wiping and gathering of dishes, she set her laptop out and grabbed headphones.  
  
Lorcan gave her a quick nod. “Good luck.”  
  
Apparently the injury he hadn’t noticed until now was a bigger issue than it seemed, and not one Elide felt comfortable talking about. But of course she wouldn’t. She’d already proven herself adept at avoiding personal conversation, and he was usually the one who maneuvered his way out of those. And why would someone like her want to talk to him? They were from different worlds, if nothing else. Elide was brains and beauty and creativity and passion. Lorcan had little ambition outside showing up for his shifts on time so he didn’t get yelled at by his boss.  
  
The afternoon lull passed by peacefully, his boss only coming out to give him terse instructions once. Lorcan felt tension in the space between himself and Elide as if they were sitting at the same table and the awkward silence was his responsibility. The need to speak with her, to get her to look at him, was maddening. He was an employee, and she was a customer. He had a job to do, and his boss would be none too happy if he started slacking off.  
  
Then again, what did he care? This was a temporary job anyway. It was all temporary.  
  
Tension be damned, Lorcan kept an eye on Elide’s coffee as she worked. He smiled when she began typing, glad that the ideas were flowing. Elide was wearing what Lorcan was coming to recognize as her usual outfit. A chunky sweater engulfed her, the shoelaces on one of her boots were undone, and her hair was up in a messy braid. He watched as she reached into her hair and pulled out a pen, then a minute later when she reached up again, only to look confused and then remember that it was already on the table.  
  
Lorcan waited until Elide’s coffee was nearly gone before he filled up another and brought it over to her table. As he approached she pulled her headphones away from her ears and rested them around her neck. She looked far more grateful to see him than he had expected.  
  
“What would I do without you?” Elide gave a happy sigh as she cradled the cup in her palms and brought it to her mouth.  
  
“How’s the research going?” The image of Elide curled into his side that night after work came unbidden. He wished he could have met her under different circumstances. He wish he could have met her as a better person.  
  
“Ok. Alright.” Elide slumped back in her chair. “Today is just not my day.” She curled her hands into tiny fists and placed them over her eyes before giving a cry of frustration.  
  
“I thought it was going ok? I mean, I saw you typing.”  
  
“Texting. Ranting to my friend.”  
  
“Oh.” Lorcan wondered who the friend was.  
  
“Remind me again, why am I doing this? Why did I subject myself to a life of this?” Elide swept her hand over the table and the stacks of papers covered in different highlighter colors and coffee stains, the books shoved full of scraps of paper.  
  
“Because it’s what you love,” Lorcan answered. “It’s what you’re passionate about, though I don’t fully understand why. Because it makes your eyes light up in ways that other topics don’t. I didn’t really understand half of what you said the other day, but I wish I had something I loved as much as you love this. Or someone.” The realization struck Lorcan with such force that he nearly walked away. Instead, he picked up an article she had highlighted. “Tell me about this. I have a feeling that ‘unpack’ means different things to us.”  
  
“Shhhhh.” Elide reached over without looking at Lorcan and placed a finger over his lips. She didn’t seem to notice the effect it hand on him, silencing him as effectively as if she had used her mouth instead. “I’ve got it. I’m typing now. I need to write.” She looked up at him. “Bye.”  
  
Lorcan took his cue. He set the article down and turned to leave. He didn’t take offense; she was there to work, after all.  
  
In the next hour, he watched a different Elide. She hunched over her computer and seemed to be talking to it. There was energy to her movements, and the space between them didn’t seem empty any longer. Lorcan was excited at her excitement, eager to hear what she had figured out to defeat her writer’s block. He watched the clock, imagining she would come over and tell him about her breakthrough.  
  
“Lorcan.” Rowan called his name, his head poking from behind the curtain that divided the back from where customers went. “You need to sign for this delivery.”  
  
Lorcan cursed under his breath and threw his towel in the sink, throwing a last glance at Elide before walking to the back, wondering how, again, he had been roped into taking on something like actual responsibility. Perhaps he had been grateful for the recognition from the owner before, but now Lorcan sorely regretted being called away from Elide, even if they weren’t exactly speaking.  
  
By the time Lorcan returned to the front of the shop, Elide’s table was empty. With disappointment, he figured he wouldn’t hear about her research, after all. He tucked his towel into the tie around his waist and started to make his way around the counter when he someone tapped him on the shoulder. Well, the shoulder would have been generous. When he turned, he saw Elide’s hand closer to his elbow.  
  
“Hi,” she said, as if it was the first time they had spoken all day. Her braid was neater, like she had fixed it sometime between when he saw her writing, and when she appeared at his side.  
  
“Elide. You made progress?”  
  
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’ll tell you about it later. But for now I had a question for you.” Elide had her backpack on and her canvas bag hung from an elbow. She looked as if she were about to leave, and Lorcan hoped she would ask him to go with her.  
  
A woman cleared her throat behind them, and Lorcan turned.  
  
Maeve stood with her arms crossed, perched on the top of precarious heels that he would normally appreciate on a woman, but felt like a weapon on Maeve.  
  
“Lorcan,” she said. Her voice was soft and calm. “You know you aren’t supposed to spend this time fucking around.” She looked to Elide, her eyes raking up and down, taking her in. The mess that Lorcan had seen as charming suddenly seemed immature. Then again, he was probably just seeing Elide through Maeve’s eyes, and she rarely approved of anything or anyone she saw.  
  
Lorcan felt Elide flinch at his side and he stiffened.  
  
“I’ve done everything you asked me to. Elide,” he said as he moved closer to her, “Is one of our new regulars.”  
  
“I know you’re off now, but I need you to help me prepare for inventory.” Maeve moved on from Elide, dismissing her. “Now.”  
  
“Well, we have plans tonight, don’t we Lorcan?” Elide placed her hand on his chest and looked up at him, blinking innocently. “I’m afraid we can’t cancel them, since I’m a student and don’t get much time off.” She turned to Maeve and smiled.  
  
“We do. Yeah.” Lorcan went along with the lie, wondering at how quickly it had come to Elide’s lips.  
  
“I thought you worked at the bar tonight,” Maeve said, eyes narrowing.  
  
“After that,” Elide chimed in. She didn’t miss a beat. “I’m going to meet him there for a drink and then we’re going to grab some dinner at this late-night Chinese place I like. Right?”    
  
“That’s what I hear.” Lorcan reached up and lifted his apron, taking it off and hanging it on a hook near the entryway to the backroom. “Sorry, Maeve. I’m sure Rowan or Fenrys can help you.”  
  
Maeve crossed her arms, her perfectly manicured fingernails tapping. “Fine. But I expect you early tomorrow. And you know what I mean by early, Lorcan.”  
  
“Sure thing.” Lorcan felt a twinge in his chest, a place where he normally would have felt loyalty to Maeve changing allegiances. He waited for Maeve to turn and leave, but she stood, watching him. Her gaze slowly shifted to Elide, deliberate and cool. The two women looked at one another, one tall and regal, the other tiny and defiant.  
  
Finally, Maeve looked away, her face shifting enough for Lorcan to know that Maeve considered Elide beneath her notice. It was just as well. He couldn’t imagine the two of them in the same space for long and both coming out alive. Elide’s irreverence would probably drive Maeve mad.  
  
Elide and Lorcan walked out into the cool evening air, where Lorcan checked his watch. “So, I actually do have to work for a bit now.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed.  
  
“Your boss is a peach,” Elide said, adjusting her canvas bag to her other arm.  
  
“Do you need me to carry that?” Lorcan reached a hand out.  
  
“No, thanks.” Elide pulled the bag closer to her side. “So, you work at a bar too? What don’t you do?”  
  
“Oh, there’s very little I won’t do.” When Elide’s eyebrows narrowed, he clarified. “For money.”  
  
Elide burst out laughing, nearly dropping her bag of books on the sidewalk as she clutched her stomach. “Is that supposed to be better?”  
  
“No,” Lorcan admitted. “I suppose not. But that’s not really what I meant. You have a very dirty mind, Elide.”  
  
Elide grinned, then looked into the cafe, the lights dimming as Fenrys and Rowan closed up. “Where is this bar you work at?”  
  
Lorcan pointed across the cobblestone street. “Just there. Convenient.”  
  
“Is that why you work there? Convenience?”  
  
Lorcan shrugged. “I won’t be around much longer.” He thought he saw Elide flinch. “I’m just saving money before I move on, is all.”  
  
“Well, will Maeve come looking for you? Tonight?”  
  
“Probably,” Lorcan admitted. “Maeve doesn’t like to be told no. But look, I work until 2am, you need your sleep and the chances of her checking up on me are slim to none.”  
  
“No, I think… I think I want to. I can stay up, live life on the edge. I’m not all books and theory all the time.”  
  
“Ok.” Lorcan pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Give me your info and I’ll text when I’m about done. I’ll get you a drink and then we can get that Chinese food you talked about.” Elide recited a number, and Lorcan sent her a text so she’d know his.  
  
“So,” Elide said, hesitant. “I guess we have a date?”  
  
“Yeah. I guess we do.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide and Lorcan go on their first date.

Elide paced the small available space in her studio apartment. According to the time on her phone, she had about an hour until Lorcan would be getting ready to shut down the bar and meet her for a late-night dinner. Her original plan for the evening had been to get takeout and possibly fall asleep early in front of the tv. Instead, the moment she’d gotten home, Elide had found herself unable to sit still. Because instead of relaxing at home and trying not to think about her thesis, Elide was going on a date.  
  
A date. Somehow Elide had asked Lorcan out on a date without actually saying the words. And he’d said yes. Well, he had to at the time, or get stuck doing more work for his horrid boss. But Elide hoped he would have said yes anyway.  
  
She’d seen the outside of that bar where Lorcan worked, and it looked like a place that wouldn’t have prices on the menus because money was no object. Maybe he’d see her out of her element, realize how completely unsophisticated she was, and that would be that. He’d lived all over, independently, while Elide spent her childhood being dragged from one place to the other, but rarely seeing the outside of her bedroom.   
  
She at least had to give it a try, though. Elide was tired of being a shut-in, even as an adult. Her uncle may not have been around anymore, but she still found herself shying away from new experiences. They had a way of destabilizing her, making her anxious over the uncertainties involved.   
  
Well, not this evening.  
  
Elide slid open the door of her closet, fingering her clothes, frowning. She had nothing that wasn’t either study chic, or constructed purely for comfort and probably ten years out of fashion. So Elide did the only thing she could. She called Aelin.  
  
Less than an hour later, Aelin was knocking on her door. Elide opened the door and Aelin came barging in, talking as if they were already in the middle of a conversation.  
  
“Ok, I can’t believe you did this, but you have to tell me everything. We can do this in less than an hour. I once got ready for a date in five minutes, and that ended very, very well. I don’t normally kiss and tell, but well, we hooked up.” Aelin looked Elide up and down. “Did you not even shower?” Her voice nearly squeaked.   
  
“Well yeah, this morning.” At Aelin’s blank stare, Elide held her hands up. “Ok, I’ll shower again!” She went into her tiny bathroom and turned on the water.  
  
“Make sure you get all your naughty bits,” Aelin called through the door. “You never know what parts he’s going to see tonight.”  
  
Elide looked up at the ceiling and let loose a tiny prayer. By the time she got out of the shower and was towel-drying her hair, Aelin had two outfits laid out on her bed, the pants beneath the tops and necklaces displayed around the collars of the shirts, as if the bodies that used to inhabit them had recently vanished.   
  
“So I was thinking, this one,” Aelin pointed to the outfit on the right, a pure black ensemble, “This would make you seem mysterious. Dark. Seductive.” Elide raised an eyebrow. “And then this one,” Aelin said, pointing to the other outfit, “Is more flirty. Don’t worry, neither are super showy or revealing. I keep those outfits home for myself.”  
  
“And Rowan?” Elide sat on the bed and fingered the fabric of the black outfit.   
  
“Oh, he appreciates them too.” Aelin grinned and picked up the other outfit, putting it back in the garment bag she’d brought. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about him, I just wasn’t sure.” Aelin’s voice took on gravity. “You know how things are.”  
  
“Of course,” Elide said. “It’s not my business anyway. Although next time you suggest a place to me, please tell me if it’s just because the employees are cute or you’re dating one of them.” She picked up the black top and pants and wandered into the bathroom, standing behind the door without shutting it. “It’s not that I mind, it just caught me off guard that you and Rowan were dating, since that meant you know Lorcan.”  
  
Aelin snorted, exaggerating it so Elide could hear from the next room. “I wouldn’t say I know him.”  
  
“So, do you want to know how I ended up going on a date with Lorcan?”   
  
“Yes!” Aelin shouted. “He’s so tall and grumpy-looking. How did that even happen?”  
  
Elide pulled the pants on and buttoned them, looking in the mirror at how they hugged her curves. “He’s just been really nice to me, at the cafe.”  
  
Aelin snorted. “Are you sure you aren’t mistaking someone just talking to you with them being nice? You haven’t gotten out much, you know.”  
  
“I know, but he was talking to his boss.”  
  
“Oh, Maeve?” Aelin cut in. “Now there’s a bitch for you. Rowan can’t stand her. I can’t wait until he can quit.”  
  
“Yeah.” Elide slipped the black top over her head, turning to see its low back dipping nearly to her waist. “She was demanding that he work super late and I just sort-of… lied and said we had plans.”  
  
“Elide Lochan.” Aelin’s voice came from just inside the doorway, and was low with awe. “Are you telling me that you lied to Maeve and snagged yourself a date, all in the same breath?”  
  
“I suppose so.” Elide turned to look at Aelin. “What do you think?”   
  
“Brush your hair,” Aelin said. “Or better yet, let me, and tell me more about how all of this came to be.”  
  
*****  
  
Elide walked into the bar after being ushered through by the doorman without being ID’d or asked for a cover charge. She’d had her wallet out and a tip ready, but her expectations of going to a fancy bar were not exactly being met.   
  
Everything was dark and warm, a nighttime version of the cafe. The walls were covered in French art deco advertisements, the ceiling a mosaic of tin hammered into intricate patterns, and the bar itself was lit from beneath. The glass bottles came in more shapes and varieties than she knew existed, and Elide wondered what angle she would film from to best capture the low light glinting from the green, blue, brown, and translucent glass.   
  
As she made her way to the bar, Elide glanced at the couples and groups who had gathered there. They were all either drunk or giddy from the late hour. Although observing drunkenness as a sober person was generally a confounding experience, there was something more intimate at work here. The groups were coupled, or attempting to couple. Arms were slung around shoulders in some weird blurred line between friendship and more. Some couples were huddled into corners, fingertips tracing patterns on bare knees, lips whispering so close to ears that they may as well have been pressed against skin.   
  
Any of them might have been the subject of the film that Elide wanted to complete for her final project. She reached into her bag and pulled out her notebook, scribbling notes as she held it on her knee, hopeful that they would be intelligible in the morning. By the time she looked up, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she no longer wondered at how anyone could read the menus.   
  
Lorcan was behind the bar, leaning slightly towards the woman on the other side of the counter. His button-down shirt was open at the collar and the sleeves were rolled up. He looked more at home here, more at ease. He moved quickly, before the woman even finished speaking, as if he knew what she would want. There were still a few dozen customers finishing drinks, but he seemed aware of what every single one of them needed.   
  
Lorcan turned to finish making the woman’s drink, and Elide watched her watching Lorcan. Her eyes roamed his body, and Elide felt a chill. It was nearly as invasive if she’d been using her hands.   
  
It’s not like the woman could have know he was going on a date. It’s not like he was really hers. Perhaps it came with the job, or maybe Lorcan didn’t mind anyway.  
  
Elide strode to the bar, pulling her hair over one shoulder. Clearing her throat wouldn’t do in a place like this. It wasn’t a dance club, but the jazz and conversation were just loud enough to make it so that Elide would have do something close to yelling to get his attention.  
  
Before she did, Lorcan turned, his eye going straight to her. He smiled, lightness coming to his eyes. He held up a finger and went to the woman at the bar, handing her the drink and asking for the name the tab was under. The woman said something that Elide couldn’t discern, and Lorcan just shook his head firmly. He turned and headed towards Elide, while she couldn’t help but rejoice at the look of dejection in the woman’s face.  
  
“Elide, hi. I wasn’t sure you would make it.” Lorcan leaned across the counter, bracing his elbows. The counter was deep, and a couple of feet would have separated them if he hadn’t leaned in. His voice was low, but somehow made its way to her through the din. “Well, I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t want to back out.”  
  
“No, I wanted to come.” She bit her lower lip. “We made a date, right?”  
  
“Right.” Lorcan reached across the counter and covered her hands with his own. Elide felt a thrill go through her, then felt ridiculous. It was hand-holding, for goodness sake. She really needed to calm herself. “Well I’m glad you made it. Can I get you something to drink?” Lorcan pulled himself up to standing, glancing at the bottles around him.   
  
“Just a water, thanks.”  
  
“I’m buying, so whatever you want. Pick the most expensive thing on the menu if you want. We have some really old wine.”  
  
“I don’t really drink,” Elide said. She adjusted her purse on her shoulder.   
  
“So earlier, when I offered to buy you a drink, what was that?”  
  
“I didn’t want to sound like a stick in the mud. It’s not that I never go out. I just… don’t do it full-tilt like Aelin.”  
  
“One water it is. Then we’ll go to this Chinese place, right?” The crowds were thinning enough so that Elide had empty seats on either side of her, and the lights that were dim when she came in had started to brighten, signaling closing time. Part of Elide wondered at herself, who would normally have been fast asleep at this point but was now on a date that was starting when everyone else’s evenings were ending.   
  
“Um, about that restaurant. I sort-of lied.” Elide had considered telling him before, but Aelin had sworn she could help her fix it. They hadn’t been able to come to a solution by the time Elide left her apartment.  
  
“Lied? How so?” Lorcan set a glass of water on the counter, its condensation already running down the sides.  
  
“Well, I don’t know any late-night Chinese places. I’m usually in bed by 11. I just said that because of Maeve, you know details to make it believable.”  
  
“Oh, that’s fine,” Lorcan said without missing a beat “We can just go back to my place.”  
  
Elide leaned back.   
  
“No, I don’t mean like that. I just mean I’m a pretty good cook. And really nowhere is going to be open. I thought maybe you had some insider knowledge about the town.”  
  
“Haven’t you lived here a while? Longer than me, I thought.” Elide took a sip of water from her straw, and watched Lorcan watching her mouth.   
  
“Yeah, but I never bothered… look, just tell me what you like and I’m sure I can make something delicious. Don’t even worry about it. And I’ll be a gentleman, I promise.”  
  
“Aelin knows where I’m going to be,” Elide warned.   
  
Lorcan stood back, hands in the air. “If Aelin is involved in this whole thing, then trust me, I will be nothing if not polite. I don’t want Rowan on my ass either.” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the cold marble countertop. “I won’t do anything to you that you don’t want. That you don’t beg for.”  
  
Elide swallowed and the lights in the bar came back on in full force, causing her to blink and look around. There were a few people staggering out, the glitter of their clothes somehow remaining bright despite the haze of alcohol and hormones. She looked back at Lorcan, wondering if what he’d said had just been her imagination.  
  
“So.” Lorcan pointed to the end of the bar. “I’ve got to take care of a few things, if you’re ok waiting. Then my place?”  
  
Elide nodded. “Ok. Sure.”  
  
*****  
  
Lorcan’s apartment was nearby. Elide wasn’t entirely surprised, since it seemed that everything in his life was chosen based on the principles of pragmatism. They didn’t talk much on the way there, though Elide supposed they didn’t have time to. Elide followed as he unlocked the door to the building and let her through, then led her down a narrow hallway, up winding stairs to the second story, and through a door just off the landing.   
  
Elide had a moment to wonder how many women he brought back to his apartment before she walked through the door. He flipped on the lights and she moved ahead of him, taking in the space.   
  
It was as spare as she imagined it would be. A long cream-colored couch was across one wall, while a small bookcase was situated just to its side. There was little to suggest a personality, or any sort of permanence. It seemed ready for the next occupant, to hint at the kind of life might be possible in the space, rather than what kind of life was lived there. If Lorcan had told her he had moved in last week, she would have believed him.   
  
“So, food.” Elide spun on her heels to face Lorcan. He had clearly been watching her, but she pretended not to notice. “I’m pretty fond of pizza. Or spaghetti. Nothing fancy, really.”  
  
Lorcan nodded and gestured to a doorway just off the living room. “The kitchen is this way. You can tell me what you want on your pizza.”   
  
Elide walked into the kitchen and sat on a barstool. Lorcan went to the refrigerator and began to pull out ingredients, setting them on the counter when his arms became overly full. The kitchen was somewhat warmer than the living room, boasting a few dishes in a drying rack and a breadbasket with various packages. The coffee machine seemed well-used, to her surprise. This seemed to be the only place that Lorcan used while he was home.  
  
“So,” Elide began, “How long have you lived here, again?” The kitchen was the only space she had seen so far that looked lived in.   
  
“Five years this month.” Bags of cheese, tomatoes, onions, and herbs gradually grew into a pile on the counter. “Do you eat meat?”  
  
Elide nodded. “Yeah, but not a ton on there, please. Are you sure it’s been five years?”  
  
“What do you mean?” Lorcan asked the question without turning towards her.  
  
“Nothing.” Even if Elide had been forced to move and make new lives in strange cities, at least she’d had her small spaces. She’d dismantled and rebuilt her bookshelves, ensured that her boxes of DVDs were labels by genre and came with her. Keepsakes, few though they were, always accompanied her. Lorcan seemed reluctant to do even that.  
  
“Do you drink coffee before going to work?” She pointed to the machine on the counter.  
  
“We don’t get free coffee. Maeve’s not that kind of boss.”  
  
“Not surprising,” Elide muttered. It seemed that any chance Maeve might have had at being somewhat generous or kind, she let pass by without a second thought. Elide was quietly grateful that her advisor, tough as she was, was nothing like Lorcan’s boss seemed to be.  
  
Lorcan pulled a container of flour from a cabinet and turned it into dough before Elide had a chance to see how he’d done it.  
  
“So you said you traveled a lot before, right? Do you plan on doing that more? Or buying a place here, or?” Elide stood and walked around the bar until she was fully in the kitchen. Pointing to a cabinet, she raised her eyebrows in a question.   
  
Lorcan wiped his hands on a dishtowel before reaching into a different cabinet and handing her a glass. “Do you really not drink, or did you just not know what to order?”  
  
“The second,” Elide admitted. “Or both, but partly because I don’t know what I like? I don’t know. I haven’t had much of a chance to go out. Work takes over everything, and it’s not exactly the cheapest habit to pick up.”  
  
“Depends on how picky you are about what you use to get drunk. But we’ll have some wine with the pizza, then,” Lorcan said, turning back to the ingredients. “I’ve got some good stuff the owner of the bar gave us last Christmas.”  
  
Elide settled herself back onto her stool to watch Lorcan work as she sipped her water. “So, thought about buying a place?” She hadn’t forgotten her question, and she had a feeling that he hadn’t, either. They were both of them adept at avoiding questions they didn’t want to answer.   
  
“Not really. I’m saving up, but not for that. I’m not used to being in one place for long. So yeah, eventually I’ll move on. Soon, even. What about you?” Lorcan set the dough in a bowl and covered it in plastic wrap. After grabbing a beer from his fridge, he turned to face Elide. “You said you moved around a lot as a kid?”  
  
“Yeah. But it wasn’t for any good reason. My uncle had his hands in a lot of business deals. I didn’t have much choice, as a kid.”   
  
Lorcan nodded, taking a swig from his bottle. “I imagine that was lonely.”  
  
“Lorcan Salvaterre, are you trying to turn my tactics around on me?”  
  
He grinned at her, and waited for a response.   
  
“Fine. Yes. It was lonely.” Elide sighed. “Can we open that bottle of wine early?”  
  
Lorcan pushed away from the counter. “Of course. The dough has to proof a bit anyway.” He choose a bottle from a full rack, uncorked it, and then handed Elide a generous pour. “Technically you’re supposed to let it breath, but it’s not that kind of evening.”   
  
Elide sniffed the glass, wondering what sort of flavors and notes she was supposed to notice, and took a small sip. “When I was growing up,” she said, looking into her glass, “I didn’t have many friends. Or at least, after my parents died I didn’t. Uncle Vernon had us moving around too much, so I just got used to staying in my room and watching movies.”  
  
Lorcan leaned against the counter, crossing his arms and sipping from his glass. “And that’s where the film thing came from?”  
  
“Yes, but it’s not just a thing,” Elide countered. “It’s an art, and you get to live all these different lives. I loved books too, of course.” She took another sip of wine. “But films have music, and I loved the technical aspects of photography and lighting and all of that. How do we invoke emotion by the angle of the camera? Should we be straight on, whose perspective is being represented, what does it mean if we focus on body parts to show emotion, rather than faces? What does it mean when one character covers the others’ hands with their own?”  
  
Lorcan watched her as she spoke, but he became further and further away as Elide’s explanation of her passion took over.   
  
“So yes, the film thing came from that. I was lonely, and I thought that perhaps, watching others’ stories, or even creating them myself, would be the same. That it would be just as good.” Elide sipped, careful to pace herself. She wasn’t used to any amount of alcohol, and in these close quarters, with Lorcan making her dinner and looking at her like he could figure out her secrets with the proper tilt of his head. She was too close to giving in to everything that had been happening in her head these past few days, but she wanted to keep a few secrets to herself, still.  
  
“Tell me about your project.”  
  
Elide sat up straighter. “What?”  
  
“The project. Once your research is done, what is the big project you are doing for your MFA?”  
  
“No.” Elide took another sip of wine. It was rich and spicy, heady enough to make her bold.   
  
“Why not?”  
  
She shook her head. “It’s too personal. Maybe later. Is the pizza ready to put in the oven?”  
  
Lorcan took the hint and dropped the subject. “Yep, give me just a minute.” He set his empty wineglass on the counter while he worked.   
  
Elide took the liberty to reach for the bottle and pour herself another glass. A few minutes passed in silence, and she wondered if she should have told him what he wanted to know. What would it have hurt? He was as good as gone anyway, from what he said about wanting to leave Orynth.   
  
Lorcan slid the pizza into the oven, then turned back to her. “It never is good enough, is it? Other people’s stories are nice and lovely, but it’s an entirely different experience when you look at someone and they take your breath away, and you don’t even know why. You feel completely at the mercy of that pull in your stomach, and you hate it even as you crave more. And it’s all you can think about from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep, and even then you find them in your dreams.”  
  
“Yes.” Elide swallowed the last of her second glass of wine. “Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Anything.” Lorcan took a step towards her, then another. He might have done anything he wanted in that moment. He was practically voicing her own thoughts, these past few days.  
  
Elide’s heart sped up but it was too much, too soon.  
  
“Can I see what DVDs you own?”  
  
Lorcan snorted and gestured to the living room. “Sure. I don’t have many, but they are in here. You can look while the pizza finishes.”  
  
Lorcan had a good mix of movies, Elide was pleased to find. Alongside the usual superhero films, he also had classics and experimental films. It was missing many titles that Elide considered staples, but if he stuck around long enough - it was dangerous territory, to think of that - if he was there long enough, perhaps their dates could become movie dates, and she could explain to him exactly why a movie like Pi was required viewing.   
  
Elide was busy making a mental catalogue of what he already owned and what she needed to introduce him to when Lorcan came back into the room and told her that dinner - or whatever constituted a meal at 2am - was ready.   
  
Another glass of wine was waiting for her when she went back to the kitchen, and Elide and Lorcan sat side-by-side on barstools as they ate. It was hard to pretend that they were on a date when they were eating pizza in the early morning in Lorcan’s apartment, but Elide supposed it only made sense. Neither of them were very public people, and so perhaps this ritual of learning about one another in privacy made more sense than doing it in a crowded bar or restaurant.   
  
“Can I ask you something, Lorcan?”  
  
“Shoot.”  
  
“Why did you leave home? You said you’ve moved around a lot. I never would have, if I’d have had a choice. So I guess I was wondering…” Elide took a sip of wine, her head swimming a bit. She munched on a slice of pizza while Lorcan spoke.   
  
“I left because I had nothing there, where I came from. It’s not uncommon, I guess. I wasn’t running to or from something.”  
  
In Elide’s experience, it was because of other people that a life was never created. That a life was never lived. “Parents?”  
  
Lorcan shrugged, putting his half-eaten slice back on his plate. “Nothing much to say there.”  
  
“Friends, then? Lovers?”  
  
“I was 16, Elide. And not exactly the most popular boy in school. No, I needed to leave because I had nothing there. But the funny thing, I didn’t expect to find anything wherever I went, either.”  
  
“Is that why you moved around a lot?” Elide wiped her hands on a napkin and sat up straighter.   
  
“I suppose so. Searching for something I didn’t think existed. Sounds ridiculous.”  
  
“Sounds sad,” Elide countered. “I don’t mean in a pathetic way,” she added, “I mean in a…” She slid from her stool and stood beside him. “I think I was looking for something, in my room. And maybe you were looking for something in your cities. But neither of us were looking in the right place.”   
  
Lorcan turned on his stool to face her. “Where should we look, then?”  
  
Elide stood between Lorcan’s legs and placed her hands on his knees. “I think here is a good place to start.”  
  
“Elide Lochan, are you hitting on me?”   
  
“I think so. I mean I’ve only seen it done in movies, so…”  
  
Lorcan started to incline his head down to meet her, but Elide pulled away slightly.   
  
“I’m serious, Lorcan. I’m not that kind of girl, I’m not the sort of girl you meet in a bar and then fuck against a wall and then forget.”  
  
Lorcan leaned forward, but not in such a suggestive way as before. “Well I’m not that kind of guy, either.”  
  
Elide raised an eyebrow. “I had no intention of fucking you against a wall,” she countered. “But I saw the way that woman was looking at you, at the bar. Are you saying you never…”  
  
“I’ve had my fair share of lovers.” He watched Elide as she swallowed. “They didn’t mean much to me. And I didn’t mean anything to them, either.”  
  
Elide considered what Lorcan said. Aelin probably would have warned her away, if Rowan had told her anything alarming. Nothing in her was crying out to tell her to leave. Every cell in her body was attuned to how close Lorcan was, what might happen if she just reached for him, and her mind was wrapped up in what they would be doing hours from now, if she let it carry on that way.  
  
“So, are we doing the kissing thing?” Elide looked up at Lorcan and grabbed the collar of his shirt.   
  
“Do you want to, Elide?” Lorcan’s voice became low and raspy, rumbling through her chest.  
  
“Yes.” Elide stood on her toes and Lorcan slid from the stool, wrapping his arms around her waist until she was no longer touching the floor. His fingertips brushed the bare skin of her back revealed by the shirt Aelin had lent her. Elide had never thought being touched in a place like that could be so intoxicating, and shuddered as he pressed his palm against nearly the full expanse of her back.   
  
As their lips touched Elide’s heart leapt into her throat and she wondered at how soft his mouth was, first kissing him softly and then with more insistence. She ran her mouth across his, feeling the bumps and ridges and taking his top lip between her own, then his bottom. Lorcan chuckled into her mouth and she pulled away.  
  
“Was that weird?” Elide wanted to squirm, but she was afraid of what she would find if she moved too much in his arms.   
  
Lorcan still held her aloft from the ground, and Elide resisted the impulse to wrap her legs around him. “Not at all. It’s just… you kiss like you do everything else, it seems.”  
  
Elide leaned her forehead against Lorcan’s. “How is that?”  
  
“Like you want to know everything, experience everything, try it out. But I’m here too, you know.”  
  
A line appeared between Elide’s eyebrows as she frowned. “What do you mean?”  
  
Pressing his lips against the spot beneath her ear, Lorcan whispered. “Let me show you.”   
  
He kissed her again, taking over. He pressed his lips into hers firmly, her head arching back at the pressure. Then his tongue was tasting her lips and she opened her mouth involuntarily, stiffening at the feel of him and then relaxing into the sensation. Her heart beat faster than she knew it could, and Elide knew that she was nearly lost to this feeling. Considering it was the first time she’d had it, she understood why so many writers never seemed to think of anything else.   
  
One hand moved from her waist and went to her hair, pulling a fistful that forced Elide to look up. Lorcan’s lips began to trace her jaw and a tiny noise escaped her throat. She turned red but it didn’t matter. Lorcan was entirely concentrated on running his lips and tongue along her skin and pressing himself against her. He managed to press one of his legs between hers, just slightly. Enough so that she knew what he wanted, and that he was asking her how far she was willing to go.   
  
“Lorcan.” His name came out something like a sigh and a notice. Elide could hear the regret in her own voice, but knew that she had gone as far as she wanted to. Elide couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else, couldn’t imagine meeting a stranger, someone she had barely spoken to, and sharing something so intimate. And she certainly couldn’t imagine taking it so far that she ended up in his bed.  
  
Elide had wanted this evening to be something out of the ordinary, but she didn’t think she was ready to go all the way yet, to give herself to someone she’d barely met and who might not stick around for long. And certainly wouldn’t stick around for her.  
  
“I think I should go.”   
  
Lorcan nodded against her, brushing her jaw with his nose, but didn’t let her go.  
  
“I have class in the morning.” Lorcan’s gripped loosened and Elide slid to the floor.   
  
“When will I see you again?” His voice had become low and raspy, as if he were catching his breath.   
  
“I have some things to do after that. And a meeting with my advisor. And I really need to write.”  
  
Lorcan held Elide’s hand and his thumb caressed her wrist. “You can write in the cafe.”  
  
“Can I?” Elide smiled. Going to work in the cafe would have a completely different connotation, now. “I’ll come by in the next couple of days.” She stood on her toes and gave Lorcan a peck on the cheek. “I promise.” Elide checked her phone and saw that it was nearly 3am. “I really need to get home, though.”  
  
“Let me walk you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorcan and Elide relish in the afterglow of their first date. Or do they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your kind comments so far!!!! <3

Lorcan had a difficult time falling asleep after their date. He recalled how pliable yet firm Elide had been beneath his grip, how she had hesitated before kissing him, then matched his enthusiasm. He hadn’t expected to bring her home, never brought anyone home, but even the sight of her sitting on his barstool, watching him make her dinner, had cracked something inside of him. It had been such a domestic scene, and Lorcan finally understood how Rowan, who had traveled and bedded with the best of them, could think to encourage him to find someone he might want to get to know.  
  
The benefit of that scene was all Elide. He could lift her in his mind and place her elsewhere - a bench on a bus stop, a movie theater, pushing a cart in the grocery store - and he was just as content. Domesticity didn’t look as repellant when the person there with him was her.  
  
It was far too soon to think of it, but he ran his hand across the empty space in his bed, hoping that soon she would be there in more than his imagination. What surprised him most was that yes, he had those thoughts about Elide, undressed and writhing beneath him and moaning, but he also wondered how she looked when she first woke up, if she snored, how many times she had to hit snooze before she got out of bed. The details of how someone else lived and moved through the world had never been particularly interesting before. As soon as someone passed out of his thoughts, they nearly ceased to exist. They had their own lives, Lorcan assumed, and he had his. So it was surprising when Lorcan wasn’t able to find the same separation between himself and Elide. Didn’t want to find it, in fact.  
  
That there were more types of intimacy than seeing someone naked, and Lorcan was surprised to finding himself leaning into the possibilities. If Elide would allow him.  
  
The day after their date, Elide didn’t show up to work in the cafe. Lorcan wondered how her meeting with her advisor had gone. He hadn’t heard much about them, good or bad, but assumed that for anyone in an MFA program, they were a pretty important figure. And her research meant so much to her, he hated to think of how she would feel about any criticism that meant major changes to her vision.  
  
He sent her a quick text - _hey, how are you_ \- but by the end of the day, he hadn’t received a response. Was this what it felt like to be in a relationship, always testing the waters, letting your day hang on whether or not someone else noticed or remembered you? It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, yet he couldn’t shake the need to talk to her, to know exactly when he would see her again, and so Lorcan continued checking his phone for a response.  
  
The second day that she didn’t show up, Lorcan wondered if he had said something wrong.  
  
Elide was a bit younger, and though years didn’t always equate to experience, he knew that leaving home and traveling the world had given him a different sort of knowledge about the world that Elide might not understand. He was used to people who took what they wanted and felt no remorse at what sort of mess they left behind. Had he become like that, so callous in his actions towards her that he had driven her away? From his memory, she had been just as eager to kiss him as he had her, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t regret everything the next morning.  
  
Now the choice was between sending another text and looking desperate, or letting it slide. Lorcan’s usual MO was to ignore it, move on with his life. But he still wanted to see her with an urgency he couldn’t account for. He grabbed his phone and sent another message.  
  
_What are you up to?_  
  
By the third day, he still hadn’t heard from Elide. He was ready to start harassing Rowan to ask Aelin if she knew anything. Perhaps he had pushed too hard, or read the signs incorrectly. He’d walked her home so he knew she had made it safely. The only other option was that she was avoiding him.  
  
When Aelin came into the shop to see Rowan, Lorcan interrupted their conversation.  
  
Aelin was in the middle of smiling at Rowan in a way that Lorcan assumed was irresistible to some men. She was attractive, sure, but there was something about her that rubbed Lorcan the wrong way. It might have been the way that she walked around as if she owned every room she entered. Or the way she had taken so much of Rowan’s attention that he hardly saw his friend outside of work anymore. Either way, Lorcan was not exactly a people person, and someone who so brashly didn’t care what he thought of her would be doubly annoying.  
  
“Hi.” Lorcan stood next to Rowan behind the counter and looked pointedly at Aelin.  
  
“Hello, Lorcan.” Aelin grinned at him. She was leaning over the counter, her fingers entwined with Rowan’s, and Lorcan wondered that Maeve hadn’t come out and yelled at Rowan to get back to work yet.  
  
“Do you know where Elide is?” Sure, he had time for pleasantries, but that didn’t mean he needed to beat around the bush.  
  
Aelin turned her attention away from Rowan and tilted her head. “I do, in fact.” She looked at him, staring. She’d answered his question, technically. Surely there was some sort of pragmatic rule broken here, but he didn’t have the patience to call her out on it.  
  
“Where is she?” He took a breath. “I mean, is she ok? I just haven’t heard from her.”  
  
Rowan sat back watching the conversation pass between Lorcan and Aelin. It was more like a tennis match than a conversation, each of them lobbing words at one another, rather than with one another.  
  
“She’s fine,” Aelin reassured him. “She told me that you had quite an interesting date.”  
  
What did that even mean? Aelin was likely fucking with him, and Lorcan had zero patience for her games. “She hasn’t answered my texts.”  
  
Aelin tsked. “And what do you think, that she sits around waiting for you all day? She’s a student, Lorcan. Elide is a grad student in one of the toughest film programs any can get into. She’s been planning this ever since she was a child. She has a life outside coming here and mooning over you.” Aelin reached back across the counter and grasped Rowan’s hand, threading her fingers with his again. Mooning, indeed. As if what she and Rowan were doing was any better.  
  
Lorcan took in Aelin’s words. Of course he knew that Elide had a lot of work on her mind. Her studies were her passion, even if he still didn’t know why she had chosen to go into that particular art form. And if she had used that word, mooning, then surely Elide had told Aelin that she had felt something? “Do you know when she’ll be by again?”  
  
“Nope.” Aelin gave an exasperated sigh. “Why don’t you try texting her again?”  
  
“I did. Nevermind.”  
  
Lorcan turned to leave, but Aelin said his name.  
  
“I can tell her you were asking, Lorcan. It’s up to her if she wants to talk to you again. Though I can’t imagine why she would, given your charming manners.”  
  
Rowan snorted, then covered it up by pretending he was coughing.  
  
Aelin continued talking, her stance wide and her arms crossed. “I’m not a matchmaker, Lorcan. You want the girl, you’re going to have to get her yourself. I won’t stand in your way either, though. Rowan here doesn’t think you’re really a threat.”  
  
“Not to people I care about,” Lorcan countered. “But people I’m not fond of?” He shrugged.  
  
“Like I said. She’ll show up when she has time, Lorcan.” Aelin turned her attention back to Rowan and her face changed, softened into a wicked grin, while her eyes communicated something to Rowan that Lorcan couldn’t interpret. Rowan lifted her hand and kissed it, followed by a soft chuckle.  
  
The only option left was for Lorcan to throw himself into work, and so he made coffees, bussed tables, and did whatever small task Maeve could think of while he tried to do anything but check his phone for messages, think of anything but Elide, finding that she filled his mind despite himself.  
  
— — —  
  
The day after her date with Lorcan, Elide met with her advisor. She’d gotten home mere hours before she had to wake up for a meeting that she’d been waiting weeks for, but for once, Elide was not sorry for being slightly irresponsible. The previous evening with Lorcan still left her a little breathless, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She knew where to find him, and he knew she was busy, so she tucked away that little part of her life, and got her ass out of bed.  
  
A former acquaintance of her uncle’s, her advisor was never one to accept tardiness. Elide finally pulled herself out of bed after slamming her snooze button a dozen times, then barely had time to throw on her usual sweater and leggings to make it to her appointment.  
  
Elide stumbled into the office, dropping her canvas bag of books on the floor. Chances were she had forgotten something, but she would figure that out later. For now, she had to talk to Manon Crochan about her thesis. Manon was imperious, beautiful, and though she put many a grad student off by her ability to stare one down and find holes in the most meticulously-constructed logic, Elide knew that her project couldn’t have been in better hands.  
  
“Ms. Lochan, please be on time in the future.” Manon finished typing and hit send on an email, then turned her attention to Elide.  
  
Elide frowned and pulled out her phone, checking the time. One minute past their agreed-upon meeting time. She had a text from Lorcan, but she turned her screen off and slid her phone back into her bag.  
  
“Of course.” She slumped into the seat opposite Manon, pulling out notes. “I’ve made some progress since we spoke last, I think I’m really onto something if I could run it by you.”  
  
Manon tapped her fingernails on the wooden surface of her desk. When Elide didn’t continue, Manon tilted her head. While it may have been a frequent tactic of other professors to allow students to talk themselves into holes, only to be rescued from their own logic by a well-timed observation, Manon was much more straight-forward.  
  
“What is it?” Elide’s mind raced. Had she checked her email? She had responded to every request Manon had made of her in the last weeks. Even if she had been a bit distracted since she’d first gone to that coffee shop, she was still on track and completing her work. No one could ask for a more dedicated grad student than Elide Lochan, and Elide would do anything for an academic whose work she admired so much.  
  
Manon leaned forward and gestured to Elide’s neck. “You have, if I’m not mistaken, a hickey.”  
  
Elide’s hand flew to her neck. “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize.” Elide hadn’t even looked in a mirror before she left the house, she’d been in such a rush, and she wondered how many other people had noticed on her mad dash to campus. She must have looked like a proper floozy. Aelin would have a field day with it, too, teasing Elide for details.  
  
Manon’s eyebrows raised ever-so-slightly, which was as good as a beaming smile from her. She seemed to know every thought racing through Elide’s head. “It’s ok, Elide. You’re allowed to have fun. You just might cover it up if you don’t want comments.”  
  
Elide reached into her backpack and pulled out a scarf that she normally carried around with her, in case she was trapped in a chilly classroom or the library which, as per usual, refused to recognize that it was winter outside. She wrapped it around her neck hastily and then reached back into her bag, pulling out a wrinkled and coffee-stained stack of papers. “So I was thinking that I might take my paper in a different direction after reading this article,” Elide said as she set said article on Manon’s desk, “And I was hoping to get your help with writing a grant proposal. Or at least to get your eye on it, so I can complete my film project.”  
  
“As long as you adhere to our deadlines, I can look at the proposal.” Manon picked up the article and glanced at its abstract. “I also know this author.” She set the paper down and tapped a fingernail on it. “We went to grad school together, did some adjuncting a bit. If you want, I can get you in touch.”  
  
“That would be great, thank you so much.”  
  
Manon waved a hand. “What are relationships for if you can’t spin them to your advantage.” Elide blinked. “To help others, of course,” Manon finished. She sat back in her leather chair, clasping her hands in front of her. “Now, let’s talk about why you’re really here. Tell me about what you’re thinking with this film project.”  
  
— — —  
  
The next days passed in a blur for Elide as she emailed new contacts, began researching information about the grant she was applying for, and scouted locations for filming. Lorcan remained in the back of her mind, but only as her head hit her pillow in the evening did she feel a pang of regret at not having responded to his messages.  
  
It was an odd sensation, being the one who was too busy to be social, who left someone else on the hook. She wasn’t doing it intentionally, and figured that Lorcan knew her life, had met enough students from the college that he had some vague impression of how stressful it could be, even if he’d never attended himself.  
  
She would, Elide reminded herself, go see him in the cafe when she woke up. It had been a few days since she’d had a proper writing session; her time instead had been spent gathering information, reading the sources a librarian periodically sent her. Now she was laden with so much information that she could have spent a week straight writing, and barely touched the surface of what she had to say.  
  
By the time she walked into the cafe, bringing in the cold December chill with her, Elide had a list of things she wanted to tell Lorcan. He wasn’t at the counter and so she took her usual table after getting her coffee from Rowan, smiling with the thought of Lorcan’s face lighting up when he came in and saw her.  
  
A tiny, nagging part of Elide wondered if she weren’t being overly optimistic. Perhaps, after all, he had no intention of going out with her again. She’d met him at the bar, they’d gone to his apartment, and they’d done nothing more than kiss. She wouldn’t be surprised if his expectations had gone far beyond that. It was a really hot kiss, but Elide wasn’t fooled. Lorcan had had dozens of lovers, she was sure. Someone like her probably couldn’t keep his interest.  
  
An hour into working, Elide had nearly given up checking the door, since it interrupted her writing flow every time the bell above the door jingled, but finally Lorcan was in. Elide jumped up from her seat, stretching her stiff muscles. Lorcan looked immediately to her, and the scowl on his face was replaced by something softer.  
  
There was a line at the register and Rowan and Fenrys were scrambling to fill orders, but Lorcan walked to her first. “Elide. Working?” There was a hint of an inside joke, some private knowledge that existed only between the two of them, and Elide’s heart soared. It was the sort of thing that she and Aelin might have done, but this time it came with the memory of Lorcan’s lips pressed against hers in the privacy of his apartment.  
  
“Lorcan, hi. Yeah.” She gestured to her computer. “I got a lot of good information. I want to tell you about it.” She grasped one of his hands in her own and smiled up at him. The clatter of cups and plates and the hissing of the steamer increased as the low, steady sound of conversation continued. “But, I think that Rowan and Fenrys might kill me if I keep you.”  
  
“I’ll be back when I can.” Lorcan leaned over and kissed the top of Elide’s head, and she nearly looked up and gave him a bloody nose, but he pulled back in time. Clearly, she was unused to this sort of physical affection, and Elide wondered if Lorcan was any more adept at this part than she was. It didn’t seem like he’d had a lot of time in his life for morning-after coffee dates or chatting in general.  
  
“I’ll be writing,” she said at his back. Elide turned back to her computer, reminding herself that she was indeed there to work, not just to tell Lorcan about what she was up to.  
  
The rush that Lorcan had walked in to didn’t die down for over an hour, and Elide became engrossed in her work, now that she knew she would talk to him soon. She watched her word count steadily increase, and had a solid draft for her grant proposal by the time Lorcan wandered over with a fresh cup of coffee.  
  
“The service here is really quite good,” Elide said as she took the cup from him.  
  
Lorcan sat at the chair opposite her, but kept it facing its normal direction, rather than turning it so that the back separated him from her. “So, why haven’t you responded to my texts?”  
  
“Oh, I meant too,” Elide said. “I had a lot going on.” She placed a hand on a stack of books. “These came in from interlibrary loan, and I met with my advisor, Manon. She gave me such great advice and put me in touch with someone who will be really helpful with my research. I’ve also got to write this proposal.” At Lorcan’s less-than-enthusiastic expression, Elide paused. “What is it?”  
  
“So that means you get to ignore your texts and come and go as you please?” There wasn’t as much bite to his words as she’d heard him speak with before, but there didn’t need to be. Not when Elide felt she was being accused of something she hadn’t known she could even do wrong.  
  
“Pretty much, yeah,” Elide said. “What is wrong with you? I know I’m not experienced with dating a lot of guys, but I’m fairly certain you’re acting like a dick.”  
  
Lorcan leaned back in his chair. Blinked. Perhaps he honestly hadn’t taken her seriously when she said she would be busy. “You’re right. Fuck, I’m sorry Elide.” He took a deep breath, and Elide watched as he tried to let every other experience he’d had in the last nearly two decades wash away. This was Elide, not some nameless woman in a bar. If he was invested in her life, he had to let her live it. “Tell me more. What did Manon say?”  
  
Elide looked at him warily.  
  
“Seriously.” Lorcan reached across the table for Elide, his arm dodging papers and books and pens. He rested his hand on the table, palm up. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, or how this is supposed to work. I know that when I look at you, I can’t see anything else. I know that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since our date. I know that when I think of anyone even being rude to you, I can’t stand it. But,” he continued, “I also know that if you’re willing to call me out on being a dick, which I was, then you don’t really need me to worry about you that much.”  
  
Elide placed her hand in Lorcan’s. Again, another fantasy came to pass, but not exactly in the way she had imagined. It was as conciliatory gesture as it was romantic, but perhaps that’s how everything would go. Caring, with a bit of compromise.  
  
“Alright,” Elide said. She rubbed the thin, delicate skin of his wrist with her fingertips. He had various scars on other parts of him, hints at the rougher aspect of his life. But here, he could be soft. Elide had lived her life soft and afraid of being bruised. She briefly wondered what her mother would have said, had she seen Elide there with a man like Lorcan.  
  
“Alright?” Lorcan repeated.  
  
Elide felt herself on the edge of something, on a precipice that could leave her in a free-fall, or on a new adventure. “Yes. So, do you want to hear about my advisor?”  
  
Lorcan adjusted his grip so that he cupped Elide’s hands in his own. “Yes.”  
  
“Well first, you should know what she saw when I walked into her office.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
Elide pulled her hand out of Lorcan’s and shifted her scarf so he could see the fading spot on her neck.  
  
“Shit,” he said softly. “Sorry about that.”  
  
Elide placed her hand back in his after readjusting her scarf. “If you do that again, it had better be in winter because I’m not going around wearing scarves year-round.”  
  
“Deal.” Lorcan’s eye glinted, and Elide squirmed in her seat. “So, what other observations did Manon have?”  
  
Elide explained the grant she was applying for, skillfully avoiding an explanation of what she would actually do with the money. She told him about Manon, which was easier since she had gotten the more embarrassing part of their interaction out of the way. It had seemed impossible to talk about in public, in daylight, and she hadn’t meant to bring it up right away. Perhaps later, if they were alone, she would show him again where it had been. It felt like an excuse to show him a bit of chaste, bare skin, and Elide lost track of what she was telling him.  
  
“So, this film project,” Lorcan said, bringing her back to the present, “Am I ever going to get to see it, or hear what it’s about?”  
  
“Eventually.” For all of her talking, Elide had never really explained her upbringing, her relationship with her parents and her uncle. The only people who knew that story were Aelin and Manon, and it felt too permanent, to tell that story to Lorcan when she wasn’t totally sure how either of them felt about each other. Tenderness was certainly a part of it, and damn if she didn’t want Lorcan to take her to bed, but Elide couldn’t bring herself to act like quite the same fool as she was in her fantasies.  
  
“Ok, well, in the meantime, do you have any plans tonight?”  
  
“I was planning on going home and watching Netflix. Aelin is coming over and we’re going to have a girls’ night.”  
  
“I see,” Lorcan said, making a show of contemplating his response. “And do you think that sometime in the near future, you might be persuaded to go out with me again? On an actual date that’s planned, and isn’t you trying to rescue me from my boss?”  
  
Elide grinned. “I think I could be persuaded to do that. I just have one request.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Can our next date start sometime before midnight?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide and Lorcan go on a proper, planned date, and take up a new sport.

On their second date, Elide found herself far more nervous than she thought she’d be. She and Lorcan had planned it for the following weekend, when he would have a day off from both the cafe and the bar, and Elide had promised that she would also take the day off from writing and researching.   
  
She couldn’t guarantee she’d take the day off from _thinking_ about writing and researching, but that agreement had been the best she could do.   
  
Aelin had listened to what had passed between them, reminded Elide that she would kill Lorcan herself if Elide needed, and then offered to help her get ready for her date. Elide borrowed a dress from Aelin, but that was it. It felt too much like she was being dressed up like a doll, and she wanted to figure this out on her own. The dress hit Elide’s knees and was a deep burgundy wool, more modest than what she had worn before, but more comfortable. When Aelin told her to keep it, Elide asked how much it was so she could pay her back. Aelin answered that she didn’t want to know how much it had cost, and not to google the designer on the label.   
  
Lorcan was taking her to a restaurant for dinner, and then somewhere afterward. He had been vague about it, but told her to dress warmly, and so she still wore her usual tights underneath her dress. She wrapped a warm wool scarf around her neck and pulled on her mittens, which she noticed had developed a hole or two since the year before. Swiping on the pale pink lipstick she’d taken to wearing, Elide figured she was probably ready for whatever Lorcan had in store. Wearing her large coat and all these layers probably wasn’t the sexiest look ever, but at least she knew she’d be warm if he took it into his head to go for a hike or something similar after dinner.  
  
Elide locked her apartment and stood outside her front door, waiting for Lorcan. Christmas was weeks away, and the sparkly lights that were such a draw for Aelin in the cafe now extended to the entire town. There was something magical about this time of year, where problems seemed to not matter quite as much as long as one had a place to rest their head at night. Though as Elide knew, even that was a tall order, for some.  
  
Elide was determined to recall the holiday season of her earlier childhood, when her parents were around, and not later, when she lived with her uncle. She had long ago learned the lesson that holiday cheer was not going to be handed to her, and had begun cultivating her own traditions. She decorated her apartment, put on holiday music, invited friends over, passed out small, handmade gifts, and never let herself forget that, while her parents would never be there again on Christmas morning, she still had friends, family, and the opportunity to study what she was most passionate about.  
  
Maintaining her equilibrium was work, and every day, Elide woke up and reminded herself of what she needed to do if she was going to achieve her goals.   
  
They made plans to meet at her building, and when Lorcan walked up to the front steps, Elide was already outside waiting for him. She stood from the step she had perched on and held her hand out while Lorcan went in for a hug, and she ended up poking him in the stomach.  
  
“Sorry,” Elide laughed. Lorcan took a small step back and waited for Elide to make her move. After a brief hesitation, she reached up and gave him a hug. Fell into his arms was more like it, since she was still standing on a step and he hadn’t moved in to meet her halfway. She flushed as he caught her, then shifted themselves into something more like an embrace. All of the layers between them made if feel like hugging a bunch of blankets, and she couldn’t help but remember the other evening, when he had pressed against her without nearly as much obstruction. Brushing her hair out of her face, Elide placed a hand on Lorcan’s chest and steadied herself back up on her step.   
  
Great. This was all going great.   
  
“So, this is where I live.” She pointed to the building behind her. It was a drab brick that at one point might have been a rich red color, but had turned brown and grey in various places and to varying degrees. Its condition was due not only to the wages of time, but poor landlords and tenants who couldn’t be bothered to care. Elide didn’t doubt that her studio was one of the only interior spaces that saw a regular cleaning. The neighbor who lived across the hall let out a distinct, and unpleasant, smell of old onions and wet dog whenever he opened his door, so she made a point to never cross paths. There was no telling what he or any of the rest of them were up to in their private spaces.  
  
“And this is all I get to see of it?” Lorcan held a gloved hand out to Elide, and she placed her own in it, allowing him to guide her from the steps.   
  
“Trust me,” she said, “This is all you want to see of it. It’s pretty small. I don’t even know if the ceilings are tall enough for you.”  
  
“A tall joke. Aren’t short people supposed to be the ones who get height jokes?”  
  
Elide found a spot at Lorcan’s side and pressed her arm against his, their hands entwined.“Yeah, no. I dealt with that enough growing up,” she answered. “And I’m fairly sure you’ve already made one or two against me.”  
  
“True,” Lorcan admitted. “It’s just low-hanging fruit. I’ll do better in the future.”  
  
“And what, exactly, will you make fun of me for in the future?” A corner of Elide’s mouth raised, and Lorcan was lost for words.  
  
“I’ll have to get to know you better, find a weak spot.”  
  
“I assure you,” Elide said, “I don’t have any.”  
  
Lorcan laughed and a white cloud puffed into the air in front of his face. It was a good thing he had told her to bundle up, even just for the walk to the restaurant.  
  
“So, where are we going?” While Elide knew they were going to dinner, she wasn’t sure where yet.  
  
“Chez Colette.”  
  
Elide looked up. “I’ve never heard of it. I thought you were the one who didn’t know anything about this town?”  
  
“I asked around,” Lorcan said. “Ok, I asked Rowan where he likes to take Aelin. I figured her highness would only take the best.”  
  
Elide hit his arm playfully as they walked. “That’s my cousin, you know.”  
  
“On what side?” Lorcan’s question was a thinly-veiled attempt at learning more about Elide, but she let him have it. She doubted she could get through the evening without allowing him some curiosity. Besides, she wanted to know more about him as well, and it wouldn’t be fair if she weren’t willing to exchange facts.  
  
“Really distant, actually. Our parents used to know each other. They were quite good friends, and so Aelin and I grew up together, when my parents were still… The cousin thing just… we just call each other that. Since neither of us have much family left.”  
  
She could feel Lorcan nodding at her side. Grateful that he didn’t ask any more questions, she pressed tighter into his side. He pulled his hand away and Elide made to take a step to the side, but then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It was far more comfortable than trying to walk side-by-side, close and not yet fitting together. They walked the rest of the way to the restaurant in silence, Lorcan’s fingers pressed into her arm and holding her close.  
  
The first time that they went out, there was a sense that her date with Lorcan, being spur-of-the-moment as it was, wasn’t real, or serious. It certainly didn’t mean anything. Elide had merely asked because Maeve had seemed like she was trying to take advantage of him. And she assumed that he had only accepted because he wanted to avoid having to work extra. But now, after having spent that time in Lorcan’s apartment, in his arms, getting to know the way that he kissed… Elide wasn’t sure if any of it could be taken lightly or brushed away. At the same time, she didn’t know if she had the time to devote attention to a new relationship when she was trying to finish her MFA.   
  
Elide may not have told Lorcan, but this date was a test to see if any of it was worth it.    
  
The restaurant, Chez Colette, was French, warm, and crowded. Bulky coats and colorful paper bags full of wrapped presents helped with the cheer, but not necessarily the claustrophobic feel. While Lorcan gave his name to the hostess, Elide searched for a place to sit while they waited for their table. She couldn’t find one, but a moment later a man approached the podium and gestured for her and Lorcan to follow him. They made a winding path through tables, then up a staircase where Elide reached out for Lorcan’s arm at the same time as he offered it to her. They reached what seemed like a solid expanse of wall, until the man pulled aside a curtain and ushered them behind it.  
  
On the other side of the curtain was a single table, lit with a candle. It was up against a window where they could watch holiday shoppers pass below on the street illuminated with twinkling lights. There were no other tables, or people, in the area that might have passed for a closet.   
  
Suddenly, this date felt very real.   
  
 Elide took off her coat and it was taken from her before she had a chance to wonder where she should put it. She sat down, surprised that she didn’t fall when the seat was pushed beneath her as her rear hit the cushion. The man - the manager, Elide assumed - set menus down in front of them and rattled off a list of specials they had for the evening. He described them in such detail that by the time he was done explaining them, Elide had forgotten what they were. That she was nervous to be left alone with Lorcan didn’t aid her memory.   
  
“How did you get us in here?” she asked, when the man had left with a formal bow.  
  
“I made reservations,” Lorcan said. He opened his menu, and Elide wondered if he had missed as much of the information about the specials as she had.   
  
“Reservations? But how did you get this table?” Elide had a distant memory of her parents and the holidays, making reservations ages in advance to get in anywhere decent.  
  
Lorcan and Elide smiled at each other over the table. The light was dim and a small taper flickered by the wall. “I called in some favors. I know a lot of people in the town, even if I don’t seem…”  
  
“Sociable? Polite? Friendly?” Elide listed off adjectives, her grin growing with every one.  
  
Lorcan grumbled something. “Serving drinks to rich assholes can get you places in this town you wouldn’t expect.”  
  
“I suppose so.” Elide picked up her wine menu and tried to avoid looking at the prices. “So, what are you having?” She knew without looking how much some of these bottles must cost. While she’d been too young to try it, her parents had quite the wine cellar.  
  
“Do you want to order the wine?” Lorcan asked.   
  
“What kind do you prefer?”  
  
“Maybe we should decide what we are eating first.”  
  
“Good idea.” Elide picked up her menu and perused the items, and the next few minutes passed in a somewhat awkward silence. Elide was used to being around Lorcan, and before the conversation had come easily, but this restaurant was new, and being on a date with plans came with different expectations.   
  
Lorcan ordered steak au poivre, while Elide decided to try the duck confit with braised vegetables, and so they ordered a bottle of Côtes du Rhone.  
  
Elide was glad to see that Lorcan felt nearly as out-of-place as she did. It wasn’t the place, and it wasn’t him, it was the uncertainty. She hadn’t been looking for anyone when Lorcan had come sauntering into her life, and she suspected that he was convinced he would never look.   
  
A few moments of silence passed. They could hear the other diners downstairs, chatting and laughing and clinking their silverware against their china. They lived in a different world from either Elide or Lorcan, she thought. They probably had comfortable homes, predictable jobs, large families to go home to. There were no secrets in lives like that, no dissatisfaction, or eternal sense of impending failure.   
  
She wasn’t sure what Lorcan felt, sitting there, and would have given anything to know if he was uncomfortable because of the same reasons, or if it had more to do with who he was sitting with.   
  
“So I have to ask you a question, Elide.”  
  
It must have been her, then. Elide looked forward to when she could go home, take off this dress and these shoes and crawl into bed. She’d just work there from now on. It would be fine. She could make coffee on her shitty coffee maker that sprayed water everywhere and frequently burnt it. At least her apartment would smell like burnt coffee, rather than whatever smell came from her neighbor. She wouldn’t have to be distracted by wondering if Lorcan wanted to talk to her, or watching Aelin coo over Rowan and Rowan’s equal devotion to Aelin.  
  
Elide sat up straighter. “I assumed those would come up at some point during the evening.”  
  
“You live in an apartment on the wrong side of town, and didn’t want to let me in. You never buy anything more expensive than a black coffee. You’re a grad student trying to apply for grants. But you traveled when you were younger, and you speak French. You know what kind of wine to order with dinner, and that dress looks like it costs more than your rent. You’re studying film at one of the most expensive schools in the country.”  
  
Elide shifted in her seat, rubbing the fabric of her dress between her fingers. “The dress was a gift from Aelin.”  
  
Lorcan nodded. “Ok, that explains one thing. What about the rest of it?”  
  
A sommelier came with a bottle of wine, interrupting what felt like an interrogation. She knew rationally that it was normal, that dates were supposed to be a time where they learned about each other, but it still put her on the defensive.   
  
The sommelier opened the bottle of wine and offered the cork to Elide. She held it to her nose, taking in the bouquet, and then nodded for the sommelier to pour them glasses. She tasted a small sip, then gave another nod for a full pour. Lorcan watched her, and Elide knew that this was one more thing he could add to the list of Information About Elide that didn’t quite make sense.   
  
He leaned back in his seat, tasting the wine. “Good choice. But you don’t drink much?”  
  
God, did he remember everything she had ever said to him?  
  
“No.” Elide sipped from her wine, looked at the film of pink lipstick she left behind on the rim. “My parents were well-off, philanthropists. They grew up with Aelin’s parents, remember?”  
  
Lorcan took a sip and then set his glass down. “Yes. I don’t know much about her, but a bit about her parents.”  
  
“Everyone knows about Aelin’s parents.” Elide sighed. “I didn’t always have to live in a tiny apartment, in the shitty part of town. I didn’t start moving around until I was 8, after they passed. I was… always very quiet, very observant. But in my parents’ house, I had something to observe. Their dinner parties, their work, the people they knew. We lived pretty well, but they were always giving to others. It was largely because of my mother, that last part.”  
  
Elide began to get choked up and took another sip of wine, biting the inside of her cheek to keep that first tear from streaming down it. If she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop, and so she could never start.   
  
Lorcan reached across the table. Elide accepted the gesture, and placed her hand in his.   
  
“Can I tell you a story, Elide?”  
  
She nodded vigorously, and a damned tear spilled over her cheek. Lorcan reached up and wiped it away before he spoke.   
  
“I’ve never had many ambitions. I’ve never wanted anything. When I left my home, there wasn’t anything great I wanted to see. I’ve been to the Louvre, the Amazon, seen the Northern Lights. But then I came here, and I met Rowan. He was a bastard at first, of course. I mean, you’ve met him. And he’d have to be, to put up with Aelin.”  
  
Elide shot him a warning glance, and he grinned.   
  
“I was looking for a place to stay, and answered the ‘help wanted’ sign outside of the cafe. Rowan was there, said he could put in a good word with Maeve. I didn’t know why he would do that, we’d barely met, and he seemed like he’d be more likely to sabotage me than anything else. But I bought a coffee and I filled out that application. Rowan came and sat with me, asked me where I was from, about my experience. I didn’t realize at the time, but it was an interview. And more than that, too. He was feeling me out. He’s no fool, he knew when I was conveniently forgetting information, or exaggerating my considerable coffee-making skills. But I’d been lonely. And he figured that out too.”  
  
The waiter came and brought their food, asked how they liked the wine, and the conversation switched, became formal, impersonal. It was such a change from what Lorcan had just been sharing that Elide felt as if she were awakening to remember that the rest of the world still existed. And Elide felt a whole new understanding of Rowan, and reminded herself to consider him more carefully in the future.   
  
“So Rowan, he offered me a place,” Lorcan continued when the waiter was gone. “He went out of his way to make sure that I was comfortable. He brought me meals - take-out, he’s no cook - but he brought me food, offered to help me move my few belongings in. Got me my job. And now every day, he and Fenrys may be just a little bit asshole-ish, but they… they’re my assholes.”  
  
Elide burst out laughing, and Lorcan chuckled. “Maybe that’s not the best way to put it,” he admitted. “But there’s something there, isn’t there? When other people don’t give up on us, even when we are ready to give up on ourselves, or we didn’t even know there was something left worth saving?”  
  
Elide searched Lorcan’s face, and he held her gaze, looking into her eyes. There was so much more to this story than he was saying, and she wished he could just come out and say all of it.  
  
“Rowan taught me that sometimes home isn’t a place. Sometimes it’s a person.” The silence was full of unconstructed sentences, clauses and verbs and declarations that neither of them felt ready to make yet.   
  
Elide cleared her throat and looked to her plate. “Well, we’d better eat before this gets cold, shouldn’t we?”  
  
They sound of silverware on china and soft sighs of satisfaction replaced personal revelations. Lorcan poured Elide another glass of wine.   
  
“My parents died when I was 8,” Elide said without looking up from her plate. She took a bite of duck onto her fork. “In the same accident that took Aelin’s parents. They were on a trip together. Since I was so young, my uncle took guardianship of me, and my accounts. I don’t get control until I turn 25, and at that point I’m sure Vernon will have squandered all of it. In the meantime, I have a trust to pay for my schooling.”  
  
Lorcan set his knife and fork down. Elide looked up at him briefly and saw the shadow coming over his face. She looked down again before continuing.   
  
“His profession has never been the most above-board. He’s had to move around a lot, either to make new connections or escape old ones. So I get used to not having friends, staying home  and watching movies. My dad, he loved movies. For the first year after he died, I just watched his favorites, over and over. Then we moved to Montreal and my mom, she was from France. So I started to learn the language. She’d spoken it to me when I was young, and I tried to hold on to it. And I did.”  
  
“That’s why you study what you do?” Lorcan asked.  
  
“Yes. I mean film as an art is so valuable on its own, and these women I’m studying, they were ground-breaking. Even if I don’t create anything exactly new, at least I’ll be contributing something. And maybe it would be something my parents would like to watch.”  
  
“I’m sure they would. But you know what wouldn’t make them proud?”  
  
“What?” A million thoughts ran through her head, scenarios she’d already considered a hundred times before, situations in which she knew her parents would be disappointed in her.  
  
“If you don’t finish. If you don’t do it at all. One day, Elide, you’re going to have to tell me what this project is about.”  
  
“One day.”  
  
The rest of dinner passed in comments about the food, the weather, jokes about co-workers or fellow grad students. Elide had Lorcan crying over a story about one of her classmates who turned in a paper that smelled like pot, and the professor’s comment to please avoid that in the future so they wouldn’t have to grade while under a contact high. Lorcan told Elide about the time that he got into a contest over who could bus tables fastest, and Fenrys had knocked over a bottle of vanilla syrup, shattering it on the floor right when Maeve walked in.   
  
That reference to Maeve put a damper on the conversation, but they were finishing their meal anyway. Lorcan paid the bill, and Elide promised she would get him back eventually. Lorcan waived off the suggestion and stood to help Elide into her coat.  
  
“So, where are we off to now?”  
  
“It’s a surprise.”  
  
Elide turned around and pulled her hair from the collar of her coat. “Lorcan, I think the suspense has been suspenseful enough.”  
  
Lorcan pulled her close, brushing his lips on her cheek. “Well, it involves winter sports.”  
  
Elide pulled back. “Are we going to… watch hockey or something?” The distaste must have been clear on her face, because Lorcan laughed.   
  
“Not exactly.” He held his hand out and they went out into the biting cold air.   
  
A couple of blocks away, in the town square, was an outdoor ice-skating rink. Lorcan bought them both hot chocolates, and he found her a seat where they could watch the children and couples trying to keep their balance and stay warm. The only lighting came from fire pits and the small, twinkling lights that had been put up everywhere, but that was just enough for lovers to be able to find one another and parents to keep an eye on their children. Bing Crosby was playing quietly on a sound system. All they needed was for it to start snowing, and Elide thought the scene would be perfect.   
  
Huddled next to one another on a bench in front of a fire, Elide leaned into Lorcan. The rink had provided the fire pits for people to sit around, but no one was really paying attention to anyone besides who they had come with. Across from them, a couple sat whispering to each other, the woman’s legs draped across her date’s lap. To their left, two women had taken off their gloves and sat with fingers intwined. Elide forced herself to turn away from them, to stop watching the way the firelight reflected off their smiling faces, and turned to Lorcan.  
  
His hand rested on her leg, and it was a moment until he relaxed. He had been waiting for her to tell him no, or that she was uncomfortable, she realized. Instead, she took his fingers in her own.   
  
“Tell me another story, Lorcan.”  
  
He was silent for a moment. Elide assumed that he would have dozens of stories, adventures and thrills. Instead, he said this.  
  
“I’ve never gone on a proper date before. I’ve never had a romantic partner, or cared for someone more than I cared about myself.” He was watching the people on the rink, and Elide watched the light play off his strong features. “I’ve been all over, but I’ve never really seen anything. Not the way it was meant to be.”  
  
Lorcan looked down at Elide. He took his gloves off, then smoothed his fingers over her brow. “You see everything though, don’t you?”  
  
Instead of answering, Elide reached up and pulled him down to her. It was different to kiss him when there was a chill in the air, when his cheeks were cold but his mouth was warm, and made warmer by her own. He tasted like the hot chocolate he’d been drinking, and everything about him was soft where she’d thought he was rough. By the time they pulled away from one another, the two women Elide had been watching at were grinning at them instead. Elide flushed.  
  
“So,” Lorcan said, “I brought you here for more than the hot chocolate. I thought we could try the skating thing.”  
  
Elide looked back to the rink. People were laughing, stumbling, falling, helping one another up. It was the type of scene she was used to observing, rather than participating in.   
  
“I’m not sure if I can.” Elide lifted her leg and flexed her ankle.  
  
“Oh crap, sorry Elide, we can just sit here, I’ll buy you more hot chocolate if you want.”  
  
Elide reconsidered. She’d been doing better, and as long as Lorcan didn’t stray too far, she could lean on him for balance.   
  
“I want to try. But you can’t go too far from me. Just in case I need some extra balance.”   
  
Lorcan stood, asked for her shoe size, and said he’d be right back. While he was gone, Elide did some of the stretches her PT had taught her.   
  
When he returned, he went to one knee and began taking her shoes off, but Elide laughed and pushed him away. “I can do that myself,” she said, “But thanks.” She reached down and unzipped her boots, setting them to the side and then lacing up her skates. Lorcan did the same beside her, and when he stood she giggled at his posture. He held his arms out on either side of himself, wobbling for a moment before he gained his balance.   
  
Elide stood and immediately grabbed Lorcan’s arm, getting her weight off her injured ankle just in case. They clomped and stomped their way to the door that led into the rink, unused to the extra weight on their feet. Lorcan walked behind Elide as she entered the rink, both of them gripping the railing at its edge. When she was fully inside, Elide turned around, one slow, sliding step at a time, to look at Lorcan. The light glancing off the white ice gave the rink a feel of being more illuminated than the rest of the square had seemed.   
  
Despite the pit of fear in her stomach that she might fall, despite the weight on her feet and the new way she had to shift in order to move the slightest amount, Elide knew that Lorcan would catch her if she fell. She could already feel a burning in her thighs and calves from trying to keep her legs from sliding out from under her.  
  
“This is… not what I expected,” Lorcan said. “But it’s interesting.”  
  
Elide laughed and leaned forward, one hand still on the railing and one clutching her stomach. “This was your idea, remember?”  
  
Lorcan tried to move closer to her, sliding his feet one at a time in moves that were not nearly as effective as they could have been. He kept one hand on the railing, but when he closed the short gap, he wrapped his free arm around Elide’s waist to pull her in close. She wrapped her other arm around him, and they bumped noses before kissing again.  
  
Elide pulled away after a moment. “Let’s see if we can do this actual skating thing.” She turned around, making the same clunky steps as before, so that she would be skating in the same direction as everyone else. She’d never gone before, but it seemed that skating etiquette demanded everyone skate their circles in the same way so that there weren’t any sudden crashes.   
  
She felt Lorcan at her back as she gained a bit of speed, figured out how to not just step forward, but glide. Surprisingly, she found it easier to skate when she paid attention to the rhythm of the music. Having a steady beat helped her find a pace she was comfortable with, and after a few minutes, Elide was no longer holding on to the railing, or thinking about her movements. They began to come naturally, and she looked behind her to check on Lorcan. The moment she moved her head her balance was thrown off, but Lorcan skated next to her, placing his hand gently on her waist.  
  
“This is getting better, right?”  
  
“They say practice makes perfect.”  
  
“We’re far off from perfect. But I think we have plenty of time to practice.” Lorcan sped up a bit, releasing her and attempting to skate backwards. He stumbled but quickly regained his feet and Elide laughed for what felt like the 20th time that day. Her work had been far from her mind, but maybe that was ok. Perhaps she could take a small break from time to time, and come back refreshed.   
  
They made a few rounds around the rink, and when the announcer said it was time to change directions, they had to adjust themselves. Their balance took their attention, but when they felt comfortable they began to chat again, making observations about their dinner, some of Elide’s favorite movies, the places Lorcan had been. Elide was so animated when talking about movies that she flailed her arms, nearly knocking her off balance, but Lorcan was there with steadying hands on her waist.   
  
Before she realized, they had been going circles on the rink for well over an hour, which meant that they had been on their date for more than a few. And Elide didn’t mind a single second of it.   
  
But then Elide felt a twinge in her ankle, and more out of fear than actual danger, she began to lose her balance. Lorcan was there in an instant, sweeping her off her feet and into his arms. He hadn’t been looking directly at her, but had clearly been paying attention the entire time.   
  
The problem was that Lorcan, too, was still wearing skates, and hadn’t suddenly become an Olympic-level skater. His feet slid out from under him because of the new weight on his top half, and he was on his back, Elide in his arms cushioned comfortably, but laughing so hard that she rolled off of him onto the ice.   
  
Elide was splayed on her stomach on the ice, and she lifted her head to look at Lorcan. He was starfishing on his back, trying to get stand up, but his center of gravity was off and his feet refused to stay beneath him. Laughing, she crawled to him on her hands and knees, even that a chore when her leggings and gloves refused to give her traction.  
  
Lorcan gave up and laid on the ice. The rink was emptying, but the remaining skaters had to swerve around them as Elide let herself fall onto the ice by his side. Without warning, he wrapped an arm around her and lifted her so that she was on him again, her legs dragging behind her on the ice, their faces so close they could feel one another’s breath.   
  
“Practice, huh?” Elide said.  
  
“I think it will take some more work before we get really good at it.”  
  
“We could practice at other things. I don’t think my career was ever to go into figure skating, so…” Elide grinned.  
  
“What would you suggest we take up?” Lorcan’s voice was low. Elide could feel a heartbeat so strong she didn’t know whose it was.   
  
“This.” Elide kissed Lorcan and his arms tightened around her. She came up for air when some of the other skaters started to whistle at them. She felt an ache between her legs and figured that getting fully aroused in public was probably not the best idea anyway.  
  
“I knew you had a dirty mind, Elide.”  
  
Elide pushed herself up and swatted at his chest. “It was just a kiss. If your mind took it other places, that’s on you.” She managed to raise herself onto her knees, and added as an afterthought, “Fucker.”   
  
Elide crawled to the wall around the rink as Lorcan laughed behind her. She managed to grab ahold of the railing, then turned to pull Lorcan up. “I think I should get home.” After an awkward pause, Elide said, “I have to get up early, start writing again.”  
  
“Of course.” Lorcan lifted her hand and kissed the inch of bare skin on her wrist between her glove and her coat. “I have work tomorrow too.” He wrapped his arm around her waist but let her lead them from the rink.   
  
The clomp and effort of trying to move while wearing ice skates brought Elide back to earth. The date was over. She’d never in a million years have been able to imagine it going as it had, and she wished she could bottle the warm glow in her chest for days when she felt so alone that all she could do was think about imaginary people and places.   
  
They found their way back to the fire they had been on before and prepared to go home.  
  
“So, how is work going?” Elide asked. It seemed like the only topic that could keep her from asking Lorcan if she could go home with him, or if he wanted to go home with her.   
  
“Alright. I might have some new opportunities coming up, which will be a nice change.” Lorcan finished taking his ice skates off and kneeled in front of Elide. She didn’t brush him away when he started undoing her laces. “The lease on my place is up next month, and I wasn’t planning on renewing it. I’ve been in one place for too long, I think.”  
  
Elide looked away. “Yeah, I remember you saying that. You’re used to traveling a lot, right?”  
  
“Yep.” Lorcan pulled off one of her ice-skates and set it to the side. “Maeve is opening another location, she wants me to go help set it up. It will be good money. I’ll be able to travel again, without having to take completely shit jobs.” He finished unlacing her other boot and pulled it off.    
  
Elide made an indecipherable, noncommittal noise. So, he would be leaving. Of course it was just a temporary thing. A girl like her, and a guy like him. Neither of them were cut out to be in a relationship.  
  
Lorcan returned their skates to the rental booth and Elide sat, contemplating while she waited. “Elide. Do you want to…” Silence fell, and Elide decided that she didn’t need to hear the end of that question. Whatever it was, it would hurt worse to know, later.   
  
“I just want to go home.”  
  
Lorcan nodded, offered her his hand to help her up, and walked her home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide and Lorcan hang out with Rowan and Aelin, and then get some alone time *bow chicka bow wow*.

Elide was not surprised that her legs were sore the morning after her date with Lorcan. After a couple of hours on the ice skating rink getting used to the weight and movement, trying to keep herself upright and not lean on Lorcan too often, it turned out to be a better workout than all those sparkly skaters make it look like.  
  
However, Elide was surprised that she had been left with a bittersweet feeling after he left her at her doorstep. The entire evening had been a relief at first. The formality of the date had softened when they shared pieces of themselves, allowing Elide to forget that she was out, and with a man she had barely met. Then laughing and skating around like fools had rid of her of the last of her hesitations.  
  
Then at the end - why had Lorcan said that? Elide wasn’t one for avoiding reality, and the fact that she’d become attracted to someone who seemed to abhor the idea of settling down may have been ironic, but that didn’t mean she had ever forgotten what type of life he led. Nor did she need a reminder in the same moment when she might have been willing to give him… well, everything.  
  
In the bright sunlight of the morning, with a day of writing and researching ahead of her, everything about the night before seemed impossible. Or if not impossible, at least it was temporary. Elide could mine it for creative material later, when the feelings weren’t so fresh. But for the day, she had to get out of bed, and go to work.  
  
*****  
  
Elide had two options for where to work: Lorcan’s cafe, and anywhere else in the world.  
  
Working at the cafe meant being around him, meant talking to him, him watching over her table like he didn’t do for anyone else. She may have been engrossed in her work normally, but she had noticed that detail, at least. It felt like a “yes”, when she wasn’t sure if she wanted to jump into something like this with someone who wasn’t going to bother sticking around. No matter how much she wanted to.  
  
Then again, she had considered working somewhere else, but it felt like too obvious of a rejection. Working somewhere other than his cafe was a “no” when that’s not what she meant to say, and suddenly she found that her life had become a minefield of choices that somehow reflected what she felt for someone else, and she checked her phone to see if he had texted so she wouldn’t be too long ignoring that, either.  
  
Fantasizing about a relationship was one thing. Experiencing it was another. The highs were so much higher, Lorcan’s lips softer and his hands gentler and the way he looked at her enough to make her need to press her thighs together. She could only imagine what it would be like if she did eventually take him to bed.  
  
But the lows threatened to keep her in bed, to make her regret ever talking to Lorcan. If the highs made her chest feel full to bursting, then the lows hollowed her out until she wasn’t sure she could continue on what was left of her.  
  
Luckily, Elide had mountains of work to keep her busy. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Lorcan, and so she made her way to his cafe early, giving herself time to settle in before she knew he was scheduled to work.  
  
When she walked in the cafe, her table had a reserved sign on it. Approaching the counter, Rowan exclaimed her name, asking how she was doing.  
  
She murmured a corresponding greeting and set her backpack on the floor to fish out her wallet. “Hey, Rowan. Um, you can reserve tables here?”  
  
“Well, we can, since we work here. I thought I’d keep that one ready for when you came in.” Rowan poured her usual drink, and jutted his chin in direction of her table. “After you.”  
  
After what Lorcan had told her about Rowan the evening before, Elide wasn’t surprised that he would do something so thoughtful. It gave her a pang, to think about how Lorcan must have felt, accepting help from someone who so clearly lacked ulterior motives. How either of them, or Fenrys, had been roped into working for Maeve, Elide had no idea.  
  
Rowan set her drink down and picked up the placard that said reserved as Elide arranged her things.  
  
She took a seat and thought for a minute before speaking. “Hey, Rowan?”  
  
“Yeah?” Rowan turned and crossed his arms. The tattoo down the side of his face might have seemed downright terrifying if she hadn’t already seen the way he was with customers, with Aelin.  
  
“How long have you known Lorcan?” Elide began pulling books and papers from her bag, trying for all the world to seem as if the question were casual.  
  
“Forever, in our terms.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Elide zipped her backpack shut and leaned back in her seat. He must have seen through her, understood that she was really trying to get at more information about Lorcan - to know if he would stay - but Rowan played along.  
  
“Well, we don’t stick around any one place for long. A year in one town can seem like an eternity. Hell, even a year in the same country can feel constricting.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Rowan rolled his neck and looked out the window of the cafe. Perhaps it wasn’t so easy to explain a lifestyle that seemed carefree, on the surface. Elide knew that Lorcan hadn’t left for any particular reason, but he didn’t seem to have gained anything from going. This place had an odd habit of collecting people like that, those without a destination who nonetheless needed a home.  
  
“We’re all different, but there’s something aimless about it. Some people move from place to place because they want to see more. Others go because they have nothing where they came from. Fenrys is like that, too. He lost his twin a while back, and that kind of thing can break you. Make you feel like any anchors or tethers you had are gone and you’re just… a small person in the world, with no one to care. Then you start moving around, because if you stay in one spot, you’ll stagnate. Something will grow from the roots of your life and take hold, strangle you until you realize you haven’t actually lived a single day.”  
  
“And this is better? This… movement?”  
  
“Some would say. At least we’re doing something, seeing things, meeting people.” Elide snorted and Rowan held up a hand. “Maybe Lorcan isn’t the best at the whole meeting people thing. But sometimes, we meet someone who make it all worth it. Makes you feel like every movement you’ve made wasn’t aimless, or pointless. But all those choices that seemed random were making sure that you headed in the right direction.”  
  
“And Aelin is that person for you?”  
  
Rowan snickered. “Do you always go for the jugular?”  
  
“Yes.” Elide smiled.  
  
Rowan sighed and uncrossed his arms. “I think she is that person. I think… a lot of things about her.” Rowan’s eyes lit up while he talked about Aelin, optimism entered his expression and he stood straighter. Elide would have told Aelin, but it seemed too private to share with her, like something she should see for herself.  
  
“Thanks, Rowan.”  
  
“I’m not sure what I did, but you’re welcome, Elide. And Elide?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Tell me if Lorcan’s being an ass. Aelin isn’t the only one who can keep him in line.”  
  
“Thanks, Rowan.” Yes, Aelin had found herself a good one. Elide made a mental note to gently encourage that relationship, though from the looks of it, it didn’t need any help.  
  
Elide checked the time. She still had two hours until Lorcan would show up, and so she put on her headphones, made her document fullscreen, and put her phone on do-not-disturb. If things were to go as she imagined when Lorcan came in, she wouldn’t have much time to write after he walked in the door. She knew she was right, that trying to work in the cafe was nearly a lost cause, but at this point, walking away was too personal.  
  
The next hours of work were, to Elide, surprisingly unproductive. But any outside observer could have told her that sitting there, waiting for the man she was dating - the only man she had ever dated - to come and notice her tacit approval of how their evening had gone, would not lead to the most productive writing hours of her life.  
  
Elide’s music was on shuffle, but all that seemed to come up were love songs. Coeur de Pirate crooned in her ears - _je ne sais plus si tu en vaux la peine_ \- and Elide kicked herself for relating to the lyrics. It was something she would have done as a teenager, not as an adult ready to receive a terminal degree. This was definitely not the type of afternoon she had envisioned for herself when she decided to come to the cafe.  
  
A million thoughts were racing through her head, now that she was conscious and didn’t just transform them into some strange dream or nightmare. What was the use of getting attached, if Lorcan had no intention of staying? Would he be staying behind? Would she be holding him back? The questions rang through Elide’s head and the words she typed would be nearly useless when she went to edit this chapter of her thesis.  
  
Elide sat back to stretch after the two hours were up, her arms over her head and her joints cracking from being in the same position for so long. She needed to get out and take a long walk. It wouldn’t only help keep her body in shape, but clear her head. She always marveled at the way the answers to her problems would come unbidden, even after hours of concentrated attention.  
  
Lorcan showed up right on time for work, not a minute early or late.  
  
Elide stood to greet Lorcan, but he looked past her and straight to the kitchen. He stalked into the cafe with his head down, grabbed his apron from its hook by the back room, and started throwing dirty dishes into the sink to clean them in some sort of therapeutic rage.  
  
She needed to work anyway. It was fine if he didn’t notice that she was there as an implicit sign that she thought their date had gone well and so she definitely didn’t need to avoid him despite him basically saying that their relationship would be over in less than a month.  
  
By the time he had finished and was rage-drying the delicate porcelain, he realized that Rowan was trying to get his attention. Rowan was grinning at him and pointed to the table in the front, where Elide sat.  
  
At that point she had finally become engrossed in her work, large headphones on, foot tapping furiously, papers scattered everywhere. A couple of articles had fallen to the floor, desperate staples holding them together, and she didn’t seem to have noticed. Her usual leggings were replaced with a warm brown sweater and ripped jeans.  
  
Without a word of thanks to Rowan, Lorcan set about preparing a latte and took it over to Elide’s table. She didn’t notice him approaching, since she had so thoroughly engaged herself in not caring, and nearly started out of her chair when Lorcan set the cup down.  
  
“Hi, Elide. I made something for you.”  
  
Elide removed her headphones and hung them around her neck. “Hi, Lorcan. I’ve been here a while.”  
  
“I know.” Lorcan pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m sorry, I had some stuff this morning that…“ He shook his head. “Nevermind. Try this. Just a sip, and if you hate it I’ll take it back. It’s free either way.” Lorcan pushed the cup towards her, and Elide looked at the intricate leaf he had poured into the foam.  
  
“Ok. Just a sip.” Elide picked up the cup and took a sip, a bit sad to be ruining his design, but when she tasted what he had made - goodness, it was one of the most delicious things she’d ever had in her mouth. “What is that?”  
  
Lorcan braced his elbows on the table. “Guess.” He watched her intently, as if he could tell what she were thinking if he tried hard enough.  
  
Elide took another sip. She tasted something burnt and sweet and deep. “Caramel?”  
  
Lorcan nodded. “And?”  
  
She took another sip. There was something beneath the sweetness of the caramel that gave it depth, but she couldn’t identify it. She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But I’ll definitely finish this.”  
  
“It’s bourbon.” Lorcan grinned. When she sat up straighter, he held a hand up. “Not actual bourbon, just an infused syrup, barrels, it’s all very complicated and I don’t totally understand the process, Fenrys could tell you. But we’re trying it out as a special.”  
  
“Well,” Elide said, “You should definitely serve these. They’re amazing.”  
  
“Good.” Lorcan hit the table with the palm of his hand. “Success. And you can have as many as you want, of course.” He smiled as he stood. “Look, Elide, do you want to do something later? Maybe my place? I wanted to talk to you about some things.”  
  
Elide took in a breath and exhaled with deliberation. What would it hurt? She’d never lost her heart before. She’d heard it was horrible, but then again, nothing else about this experience had gone as she expected.  
  
“Ok. When are you off?”  
  
“I don’t work at the bar tonight, so around 6.”  
  
Elide glanced at the time. “So I have a few hours to work then?”  
  
“Yes.” Lorcan grinned and stood.  
  
“And you’ll leave me alone, except to bring me more of these drinks?”  
  
Lorcan bowed. “As you wish.”  
  
“Alright. Your place. Tonight.”  
  
Lorcan was true to his word and left Elide to her writing for the remaining hours of his shift. She barely noticed him coming and going, and she might have, if she’d been paying better attention, been astonished at the way he started cracking jokes with Fenrys and Rowan. Though he had come to work in such a mood, Elide might have noticed that he started to feel at ease.  
  
When Elide found herself at a good spot to stop writing, she stretched again and stood. There were hardly any customers left in the cafe, it being so late in the day. She began to stroll in small circles, first around her table, and then in larger routes until she was wandering through all of them, finally taking in the art on the walls, the colors and lighting. It would have been a lovely place to film, if she didn’t have so many emotional attachments already. Or perhaps her mother would have told her that was the exact reason she should use the space.  
  
It was time for Lorcan to leave, and Elide packed up her belongings. It felt oddly domestic, packing to go home with him, though it wasn’t her home.  
  
The bell over the door jingled, and odd sound considering business had slowed. Aelin came into the cafe, laughing and bringing energy with her. Rowan immediately took off his apron and walked to the entrance to meet her. Lorcan continued cleaning dishes while Fenrys made jokes that Lorcan no longer heard, as he was watching Elide. They were the only people left in the cafe, all the other customers having moved on for the evening.  
  
Aelin unwrapped her scarf, her cheeks bright and rosy. “Elide, we’re going across the street. Wanna come?”  
  
“You mean the bar?” Lorcan approached the table, and cup he was drying still in his hands.  
  
“Yeah.” Aelin answered him without sparing him a glance. “You can bring your boyfriend if you want.” Aelin linked her arm in Rowan’s and looked from Lorcan to Elide, a sparkle in her eyes.  
  
In the past few weeks, Elide had gone from a hermit who only left her apartment on principle, so that Aelin wouldn’t give her shit for never leaving, to someone who had something that resembled a group of friends and a love life. Before, she had thought of nothing but work, and thought she was ok with that. Elide had looked at the life Aelin led, and been just a bit terrified by it.  
  
Now, looking at Lorcan, Elide tried to figure out the possible endings to this evening. Realizing that she had no way of predicting how it would go, she made a decision.  
  
“Yes.” Elide stood and slammed her books shut. “Um, I don’t really want to carry all this stuff with me, maybe I can meet you there?”  
  
“I’ll put it in my locker, here. Don’t worry about it, you can have Rowan or Fenrys let you in tomorrow.” Lorcan reached out for her bags. Elide took her wallet out before handing them to him, then joined Aelin at the entrance.  
  
Walking out into the cold night air was unsettling for two reasons, and Elide couldn’t decide which was stronger. First, she wasn’t burdened by her bags of books. She didn’t have to keep an eye out for her laptop.  
  
Second, she was walking out of the cafe with a small group of people, one of whom she had become increasingly fond. Elide, the solitary reader, the girl whose uncle had teased her mercilessly about how pathetic she was for having no friends - though that it was his fault seemed to slip his mind - was going on a social outing.  
  
The bar wasn’t crowded yet, but had a different feel than it did when she had met Lorcan the week before. That evening she had arrived when business was winding down, when lovers had already had their share of drink and paired off. This evening, there was a sense of building energy, a sense of potential and mistakes yet to be made that no one could imagine would be as bad the next morning as they always were. A woman was behind the bar and raised the glass she was cleaning to Lorcan. He tilted his head in acknowledgement, then placed his hand on the small of Elide’s back.  
  
“There’s a table back here. It’s usually reserved, but they’ll let us have it for a while.”  
  
The table was set in a small alcove, curtains held back that gave the impression the space would turn entirely private, if the group wished. Aelin hung from Rowan’s arm, her head leaning into him as she gave him an unabashed smile. They slid into the booth, Rowan and Aelin on one side and Elide and Lorcan on the other.  
  
“So, does one of you have an infectious disease, or what?” Aelin asked. She propped her menu open and glanced pointedly at Elide from over the top of it.  
  
Elide looked to Lorcan. She had indeed crammed herself so far into the booth that she was against the wall, while Lorcan was close to the opposite edge. They grinned at one another and scooted until they were close enough that Lorcan could have put his arm around her. If he wanted to.  
  
Aelin turned to Rowan and said something too low for Elide or Lorcan to hear, so Elide picked up her menu to see what they had. The prices were what she had assumed the first time that she came, and she set the menu down. “I’m good with water.”  
  
“Let me order for you,” Lorcan said. “I just know what’s good here, is all.” He shot Aelin a look in return for the raised eyebrow she had served him. “And it’s on me, too. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
“Ok.” Elide sipped from the waters that their waiter had brought while he ordered a few drinks and small appetizers.  
  
Waiting for their drinks and food was an exercise in patience, as the dynamic between Aelin and Lorcan never quite found an equilibrium. Elide looked across the table to see how Rowan was, and he shot her reassuring looks. Clearly, this was a song and dance he had witnessed before.  
  
Aelin was asking Lorcan something about his lease when the drinks were delivered. The moment drinks hit the table, all talk ceased. Lorcan handed Elide the drink he had ordered for her, and watched her taste it. It was a grown-up version of what he had served her in the cafe, though much heavier on the bourbon. Even sipping the drink, Elide could feel the burn of the liquor traveling down her throat and warming her stomach.  
  
“Do you like it?” he asked, his voice low.  
  
“Yes.” Elide’s voice was small in the dark and crowded bar. The music had been turned up, and combined with the conversations around them, they had to raise their voices to be heard by people just across the table for them. But Elide discovered that pressing her lips just to Lorcan’s ear was an effective way to be heard, and caused a hitch in his breath.  
  
They spent the next hour being regaled by Aelin’s stories, the times she had made a mess or cleaned it up, her adventures with Rowan, and a few choice memories with Elide. Nothing too personal, nothing with her parents or Vernon. Lorcan perked up when Aelin talked about Elide, frequently glancing back at her as if trying to place her in the scenarios Aelin described. Even Rowan noticed Lorcan’s apt attention, and Elide began to avoid his looks across the table.  
  
Two drinks in, Elide was feeling much more at ease, and had even joined Aelin in telling anecdotes from their childhoods together. Elide was in the middle of telling everyone about the time she and Aelin had become convinced they would run away and start their own queendom, ruling side-by-side as benevolent mistresses of a cat empire, when she realized that perhaps it was time to switch to water.  
  
Turning to Lorcan, she asked if they could settle the tab and head to his place.  
  
Lorcan leaned in close. “Are you propositioning me, Elide Lochan?”  
  
She sat back, shocked, her nostrils flaring. “No, you said!”  
  
Lorcan laughed, to which Aelin looked at Rowan to make sure he was seeing the same thing. “I remember what I said. Let’s head over.”  
  
Lorcan’s tab apparently worked differently there, since he was an employee, and they left Rowan and Aelin behind in that secluded booth. Elide nearly had a mind to close the curtains and give them the privacy they clearly wanted.  
  
Out in the cold evening air, the sky had become inky black, the twinkling lights of the city covering and replacing the light of the stars. Elide took in a deep breath, relishing the cold air as it filled her lungs. On some days, she felt more alive than others. Some nights, she thought she didn’t mind going to be alone. But then the sound of laughter from down the street broke the silence, and remembered why she had agreed to go out with Lorcan in the first place.  
  
“Wait,” Elide said, turning to Lorcan. She’d been leading on the way to his apartment and he’d let her, trailing behind and taking in the night every bit as much as she was.  “What are we going to talk about at your place?”  
  
Lorcan pulled her close, nearly off her feet. “What if I say it was just an excuse to get you alone?”  
  
“Shameless!” Elide tugged on the collar of his coat. “Why are you so damn tall,” she grumbled. “How can I ever surprise you with a kiss when I have to crawl up you?”  
  
Lorcan flicked the tip of her nose. “You’re a little drunk, aren’t you?”  
  
Elide considered for a moment, and then shook her head. “It’s wearing off, I think. It was just two drinks.” She giggled and tugged on his collar again. Lorcan leaned down and kissed her, forcing her to bend backwards and rely on the arms around her waist to keep her from the ground. The contrast between his warm mouth and the cool air made her want to unbutton his coat and crawl inside. And as Elide stumbled up Lorcan’s front steps, waited for him to unlock the front door, made her way up the steps to his apartment and then waited for him to unlock that last door, she thought about doing just that.  
  
In his apartment, Elide only waited for Lorcan to lock the door before she was pulling him down her, shoving his coat off his shoulders and stumbling backwards to pull him towards where she assumed the bedroom was. The lights hadn’t been turned on yet, and she didn’t know the place well enough. Instead of making progress down his hallway, she hit her heel on a table she swore hadn’t been there on her last visit, and Lorcan picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist without pausing for breath.  
  
Lorcan had one hand grasping her hip, and the other gripped fistfuls of hair as they kissed one another, neither of them willing to let the other lead. The kiss was sloppy and desperate, the rest of the day being merely a prelude until they could be there, alone, together.  
  
“Where?” he managed to say against the skin of her jaw.  
  
“Couch.” Despite her earlier intentions, Elide wasn’t sure that being in bed with Lorcan - even if they didn’t go all the way - was really an option just yet.  
  
Lorcan’s lips paused, but he changed direction, moving them towards the couch that was one of the only pieces of furniture in the place large enough for both of them. Her heart skipped a beat. When they reached it, Lorcan lowered her down to sit, while he kneeled on the floor, though she tried to keep kissing him.  
  
“What is it?” She sounded like she had been running a marathon, which was only slightly embarrassing. Her hand pressed against his chest, the only point of contact they had left.  
  
“Are you sure you’re ok with this?” Lorcan shifted uncomfortably, and Elide wondered what was going on underneath his clothes, when she would be able to touch him.  
  
“Yes. But I might tell you to stop.”  
  
“No problem.”  
  
Elide looked down, somewhere in the vicinity of her feet. She wasn’t quite ready to look him in the face, not with  his breath hot on her face, and the throbbing between her legs that she normally took care of herself.  
  
Lorcan placed a hand on her cheek. “Elide, look at me.”  
  
She obeyed, tilting her head up.  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say the words when she didn’t know them or how to make them come out sounding like desire and not some crude schoolgirl playing at being a woman, when she’d never talked about these things with her parents, or been able to talk so unabashedly about sex as she’d heard Aelin and Lysandra talk about it. So instead, Elide sat on Lorcan’s couch, her hands braced on the edge and staring somewhere in the realm of his navel.  
  
Lorcan sat back on his heels so they were eye-to-eye. His thumb stroked her cheek as he spoke. “Do you want me to kiss you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Lorcan leaned forward, back up onto his knees. His hands braced on either side of Elide, and he kissed her again until she was breathless and spreading her legs to pull him closer, pressing her chest into his and wrapping around him so tightly that he fell forward. He shifted them so that Elide laid down on the length of the couch and he joined her, hovering over her, closer than he’d been before and crowding every sense she had.  
  
“Do you want me to keep going?”  
  
The weight of him over her was nothing like Elide expected. Any time she thought about being in a bed with him, she was worried to be crushed or uncomfortable, but the air that refused to enter her lungs now had nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the idea of what he might do next. She might not be able to say the words, but Elide’s imagination had no such compunctions. She’d thought about herself like this before, but the deliciousness of him over her, pressing her into the cushions, the way she had to spread her legs to make room for him - and it wasn’t in a coquettish way, no, it was merely necessity - well, her imagination had never given her a hint of what it might really be like.  
  
Elide nodded but interrupted her own movement by pulling her sweater up and over her head. She threw it on the floor, just out of reach, but not out of sight if she suddenly need it. She’d never done so much with anyone, never had the inclination to try out any of her fantasies in real life, but that was before Lorcan and his tattoos and his muscles and his way of listening to her and making her laugh.  
  
Lorcan took her in, his hand splayed over her ribs and feeling the curve of her waist. His palm ran over her bra, grazing her nipple through the thin fabric. She arched into him and he reached underneath the lace, thumb running over the pebbled skin and cupping her breast. “Elide.” Her name came out in a strangled voice and she wrapped her legs around him, reminding him that he wasn’t just there to look at her.  
  
His lips went to her neck first, and she giggled, reminding him not to give her a hickey this time. His only answer was to groan into her skin, wrapping his hands around her wrists and pinning them to her sides. Her giggle died in her throat, overtaken by the deliciousness of knowing that everything Lorcan was about to do was designed to make her come.  
  
Lorcan kissed her for a while, and Elide had a feeling that he would continue like that forever if she didn’t make a move. She fumbled her hands free and unbuttoned her pants. Taking one of Lorcan’s wrists, she guided his hand down. She’d always been better at showing, rather than telling. Lorcan’s fingers brushed over the place where bare skin became covered with lace, and his fingertips lightly playing with the boundary. They slid in, barely a half inch beneath the waistband, and Elide was sure that she would never remember how to breath again.  
  
“Elide, tell me what you want.”  
  
Her mind raced. She couldn’t say the words she wanted, it would sound ridiculous coming from her mouth to say that she wanted him to fuck her with his fingers, that she wanted him to feel how wet he made her just by grinning the way he did with the corner of his mouth upturned and wicked. She wanted to ask if he would stay, if she would wake up one morning and he would be gone.  
  
Instead, she came up with something simpler, something that got her what she wanted then, if not forever. “Touch me. Please.”  Elide decided to accept it, to take what he was willing to give her until her left for another town, another woman. And even as Lorcan adjusted himself to pull her jeans over her hips, then slowly pulled her panties down her thighs and calves until she was bare before him, all she could think about was that this moment could never last long enough.  
  
He was between her legs, on his knees while hers were bent and left her exposed. Lorcan slid his palms up her legs, starting low, waiting for her to protest. Instead, Elide stared up at the ceiling, clutching the blankets that covered his couch.  
  
“Elide.” Lorcan placed a kiss on her knee. “Look at me, ma chère.”  
  
Elide glanced down and saw Lorcan between her thighs, his eyes dark and warm. He moved closer to her core, but he kept his eyes on hers. When he had settled next to her, he propped his head up. There was so little room with the two of them on the couch that he was pressed into her, the back of the couch and the bulk of his body trapping Elide.  
  
With one hand, Lorcan pulled the strap of her bra down, then kissed her shoulder. He raised an eyebrow, and she lifted her back, unhooking her bra before tossing it to the side. Now she was naked, naked in this man’s apartment, on his couch, and he could do anything he wanted to her. But it wasn’t just anyone, it was Lorcan, and he looked at her with nothing less than worship.  
  
The tips of his fingers - she’d never known how magical fingers could be. They traced a path along the sides of her breasts, between them, along her collarbone, glancing over her nipples. She was fairly certain she was going to combust, all useless limbs and shuddering breaths, when all she wanted was to feel Lorcan on top of her again. She didn’t know what to with her hands, with Lorcan laying alongside her, and she shifted to her side, putting her hand beneath the fabric of his shirt, feeling the muscled body beneath. As Lorcan stroked her back and then cupped her rear, Elide let her lips travel across his chest, a combination of coffee and booze and sandalwood emanating from him, and scent she was coming to know well. She threw one of her legs over his hip, pressed against him, and felt him hard beneath the fabric.  
  
And then Lorcan’s hand was between her legs, his fingers moving easily into her cunt.  
  
“Fuck, do you know how wet you are?” The words spoken against her ear should have made her blush, cover herself, but instead she fell on her back and planted her feet on the cushions so her knees pointed to the ceiling, spreading her legs in a way she’d never known she could be comfortable with.  
  
Lorcan looked down at where she welcomed him in, ran his fingers through her until he was thoroughly coated, and slid one fingertip inside. Elide lifted her hips, trying to get him deeper, and he obliged. But it was only one finger, and she wanted more, she needed so much more than that if she was going to come.  
  
“You’re beautiful, Elide.”  
  
His thumb pressed against her clit and then retreated, he leaned his head down and ran his tongue over a hardened nipple, and Elide didn’t know how she wasn’t already on the edge. Every nerve in her body was either aware of Lorcan touching her, or aware that she was naked beside him.  
  
“Fuck.” The words escaped her before she knew it, and it was this that caused Elide to blush. She covered her eyes with her hands and Lorcan nudged her with his nose, his hands being otherwise occupied.  
  
“Elide, tell me what you want.” He slid another finger inside of her and she groaned.  
  
“That.”  
  
She grabbed his arm with one hand and clutched the back of the couch with the other, unable to keep her hips from undulating on Lorcan’s hand. He quickly learned what her movements meant, what she needed to be able to come, but not too quickly. He whispered her name into her hair, looked down at the place where his fingers disappeared into her cunt, moved easily over her folds as he found the bundle of nerves that caused her to shudder over, and over again until she tensed and threw her head back and screamed his name.  
  
Elide shuddered as she came around Lorcan’s fingers. Her fingernails dug into his shoulder so hard that she left little red marks, nearly breaking the skin but not quite. She clenched her thighs around his hand, wringing the last few waves she could from her orgasm until she let her legs flop onto the couch, all energy and composure lost in the aftermath of what he had done to her.  
  
Lorcan pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over Elide before he stood. He walked to the kitchen and she heard the sound of cabinets opening and closing, water running, and had sat up with the blanket wrapped around her by the time he came back with two glasses of water.  
  
He waited until she had nearly emptied her glass before settling in closer to her. He found a space on the couch and pulled her to lean against his chest. “How are you?”  
  
“Good?” How was one supposed to answer that question?  
  
“I didn’t go too far, did I?”  
  
“No, not at all.” Lorcan’s breath was tickling her ear, and Elide wasn’t sure if she remembered words any longer. “I just don’t normally talk about this stuff. Or ever talk about this stuff. I’m not really sure how.”  
  
“We don’t have to talk, if you don’t want.”  
  
They passed a few minutes in silence, Lorcan running his fingertips down Elide’s bare arm, Elide feeling the rhythm of his breath as his chest moved behind her. She was well and sober now, and sobriety had a habit of reminding her that they hadn’t really discussed anything.  
  
“Lorcan, did you really want to talk to me about something?”  
  
Lorcan’s breathed stopped for a moment before he sighed. “No. Not right now.”  
  
“Ok.” There were words between them that needed to be said, but part of what they weren’t saying was that those words could ruin everything.  
  
The dark, combined with the silence between them, was too much. Elide couldn’t breath, couldn’t take how close they were on the couch, yet how far away Lorcan suddenly seemed. She stood, keeping the blanket wrapped around her. “I’m going to get dressed.”  
  
Lorcan jumped up from the couch. “You could… you can stay here if you want.”  
  
Elide looked down at the floor while she thought. “I’d better not.” She cleared her throat. “But you can walk me home?” It may not have been everything that she wanted, but it was something. It wasn’t a yes or a no, but she didn’t know yet how to say she wanted either.  
  
“With pleasure.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide makes some more decisions about how to deal with The Lorcan Situation.

Lorcan reached across the bed before he remembered that Elide had gone home the evening before. When he touched his lips he could still feel her there, hated the idea of the taste of her fading away with the reality of daylight. And that was why he never bothered to get to know anyone. That led to hope, and expectations, and then inevitably, disappointment. Whether it was disappointment on his part or that he caused someone else, it hardly mattered. The point was that he avoid the whole experience.   
  
Though he couldn’t consider himself disappointed now, not exactly… It was bittersweet, remembering what had happened in the dark privacy of his apartment. Elide had trusted him so fully, and that was perhaps the part that struck him the most. But then realizing that Elide hadn’t stuck around afterward put a slight damper on the memory. He couldn’t blame her, but it felt more like something he would have done, to other people. During another time in his life.  
  
When Lorcan had asked Elide to stop by, he hadn’t meant for the evening to end up that way. He didn’t regret that it had, and he hoped that Elide didn’t, either. Their parting had been amicable, Lorcan leaving her on the steps to her apartment, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t had second thoughts about what they had done. She’d had hours in which to regret letting him undress her and-  
  
There wasn’t enough time before work for his thoughts to go there. Inventory was coming up at the cafe, and that meant Maeve expected everyone there nearly round the clock. That Fenrys and Rowan would also be there bright and early was no reassurance. They would likely be there with questions and taunts that never crossed the line into disrespectful, but certainly crossed some personal boundaries.   
  
Refusing to completely give in to the black fog that threatened his day, Lorcan picked up his phone. He tapped the back for a few moments in contemplation, then open his messages to Elide.   
  
_Good morning, beautiful. How are you?_  
  
He threw his phone back on the nightstand, not wanting to sit and stare at it while he waited for a response. He headed towards the shower, waiting until he was out and dressed and ready for work before he checked again. He bit the inside of his cheek so hard that it forced his smile into a frown to see the screen lighting up and Elide’s name there.  
  
 _Morning, Lorcan. Good. You?_  
  
Lorcan allowed himself to grin. _When can I see you?_ He thought for a moment before hitting send, then thought better, erasing the message that he’d received from women and was one he was about to send Elide, one that made him block their numbers. And now that he was the one dangerously close to sending it… Lord save him. Instead he wrote a different message.   
  
_Great. What are you up to today?_  
  
It was open-ended. Curious about her, but not demanding. Not whining or needy. Perfect.   
  
For all of his experience, Lorcan didn’t know the first thing about relationships, so he sent up silent thanks that technology gave him time to compose himself.  
  
 _I’ve got to go away for a few days. Trip with Manon, she’s introducing me to that scholar I told you about._   
  
Right. Elide was going to be gone, which meant that the amount of time they could spend together before he left town was down to less than two weeks. His phone vibrated again.  
  
 _Can we go out when I get back? I get to pick what we do._  
  
 _It’s a date._  
  
 *********  
  
The moment she woke up, Elide buried her head back underneath her blankets. She was still in something of a haze from what she had done the night before - or rather, what Lorcan had done to her - and getting out of bed would make it a bit less real. She replayed it in her head, even if it was a bit suffocating under the blankets. The way she had kissed him, wrapped her legs around him. She’d partly undressed herself, and Elide blushed at the same time she was proud.   
  
Her fingers drifted over the curve of her stomach and in between her legs, trying to imagine they were Lorcan’s,  pressing into her again.   
  
Elide moaned, to be alone in her bed. Everything in her had wanted to stay with Lorcan the night before. Well, perhaps that wasn’t the truth. Every cell in her body wanted to stay, to let him keep touching her, but she could already feel the absence by her side, was trying to accustom herself to it, to avoid future disappointment.   
  
But the reality now was that Lorcan was in bed across town, also alone, probably thinking of her. So what good had it done, to leave his apartment the night before so they could both be miserable?   
  
Elide threw off her blankets in a huff and grabbed her phone. Just as her fingertips touched the screen it buzzed. She avoided opening the message for a minute until it buzzed again. Looking down, she saw that her first message was from Manon, asking if she would be ready to leave. Elide answered it immediately, confirming their plans.   
  
The second message was from Lorcan. She shot back a response right away, biting her lip at that word, beautiful. The feminist in her didn’t care if he thought she was beautiful, but there was another girl in her who blushed. That girl had grown up watching rom-coms and movies that put love above everything, and in those movies, the lead was always so beautiful as to defy reality. She’d never wanted to be that girl, but Elide had never been able to keep from imagining a different story for her life, if it were a movie. In that story, she would have met Lorcan by tripping and falling into his arms. Lorcan would have been struck by her immediately, and known that leaving was not an option. She wouldn’t have been nearly so awkward at that restaurant, and known exactly what to order at the bar. That Elide would have led Lorcan to the bedroom and intuited what to do, even if it was her first time.   
  
But that was never how Elide’s story was going to go, and it was no one’s fault.   
  
Lying in her bed, Elide wondered when she would hear Lorcan call her beautiful again. She put the phone down and buried her head under her blankets again.  
  
And yet… he was leaving. Eventually, very soon, Lorcan was going to leave town, to keep working for Maeve, and then he would have enough money to go anywhere he wanted. He would go far away from her, where he would undoubtedly meet a tall, thin, glamorous woman who didn’t need him to explain how to kiss. Whoever he met, this woman would be someone more like Lysandra or Aelin. The thought forced a lump into her throat.   
  
When her phone buzzed again - _Great. What are you up to today?_ \- Elide wondered if Lorcan wasn’t feeling her out, asking if she was free to meet without actually asking. It didn’t matter anyway. She and Manon were leaving, and it was probably for the best. It would give her a few days to think, to figure out how, exactly, she could get everything out of the following weeks that she wanted, without leaving her heart in pieces at the end.  
  
 *********  
  
Elide’s trip came and went rather successfully. Manon turned out to be quite an easy traveler, needing only her blood-red lipstick and the same black patent heels she always wore. Elide had assumed she would be high maintenance, but apparently Manon was just naturally glamorous.   
  
When she got back into town, Elide dropped her small duffle bag off at her house and then went straight to the cafe. Lorcan was working, and he nodded his head at her, finished making a customer’s drink before joining her at the table that held the little “Reserved” placard again. She wondered who had put it there, if Fenrys was now in on the joke.  
  
Lorcan leaned down and gave Elide a kiss before sitting down. He’d done it without thought, but the realization of how naturally it had come was fully apparent to both of them afterward, and gave them pause.   
  
“How was the trip?” Lorcan asked her.  
  
While she was gone, Elide had come up with a completely rational plan. She would tell Lorcan that they could be friends, but that was it. There was no need to spend time being more when it wouldn’t go anywhere. It was so easy, to make that resolution to never see him again when he wasn’t around, looking at her like that. But now, when she couldn’t help but look at him like that… Screw time, Elide thought. Screw the potential for getting hurt, who cared if two weeks from now was the last time she ever saw him. She’d never felt like this, and based on what he told her about his past, he hadn’t, either.  
  
“It was good. But I can tell you about it later.”  
  
“Later? Do you have to go?” Lorcan reached across the table and threaded his fingers through hers, anchoring her there.  
  
“No, it’s not that. When are you off work?”  
  
Lorcan looked at his wristwatch. “About an hour.”  
  
“Perfect.”  
  
Lorcan tilted his head.   
  
“Our date, remember, I get to choose what we do.”  
  
“Of course I remember. So what did you have in mind?” Lorcan’s thumb brushed along the side of hers, in a movement that reminded her of when he had run those same hands across her breasts, plunged them deep inside of her.   
  
Elide realized that she was staring at his hands, and Lorcan had to say her name to get her attention. There was a glint in his eye that told her he knew exactly what she had been thinking.   
  
“Movies. I think we should watch movies together. And we can eat. Food.” Apparently, eloquence was no longer a skill she could count on when she was distracted by Lorcan’s hands on her skin, if it ever had been.  
  
“Movies. And food,” Lorcan repeated. “I think we can manage that. Where do you want to go? I can check what’s playing at the new big theater out by the highway.”  
  
Elide’s nose scrunched up. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “I want to take you to my place. Have full control of what we can watch. I don’t want to expose you to anything… inappropriate. Give you ideas.”  
  
“Don’t worry Elide, I have plenty of ideas about what to do to you all on my own.”  
  
Elide blushed, but held tight to Lorcan’s hand. “I didn’t mean those kind of ideas. I meant like… communism.”  
  
Lorcan looked puzzled, then burst out laughing. Even Rowan and Fenrys were forced to look over and identify the near-unrecognizable sound coming from Lorcan’s mouth. Elide giggled at the incongruence in his gruff exterior and the fact that he had just laughed at her dumb joke about inappropriate communism.   
  
“That was a horrible joke, I hope you know,” Lorcan said, wiping his eyes. “You have a very strange sense of humor.”  
  
Elide shrugged. “You’re the one who laughed at it. And the one who always insists on making things dirty. I just meant I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about French cinema. It’s not all Amélie, you know.”  
  
“What’s that?”   
  
Elide smacked his forearm lightly. “Haha, Lorcan.”   
  
“What if we watched a movie at my place instead?” Lorcan cleared his throat.  
  
“Has anyone ever told you to never play poker?” Elide asked.   
  
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Lorcan said, feigning innocence.  
  
But a glimmer had come into Lorcan’s eye, and Elide was startled to realize that she was beginning to understand his body language. It felt like a very couple-y thing to know, to understand words he had never said.  
  
“Just that you clearly want me on your couch again.” Elide traced the tip of her finger up his arm. “Or maybe you’re more curious about what will happen when I get you there.”   
  
“Elide Lochan.” Lorcan shook his head slowly, back and forth. “You are threatening my virtue.”  
  
“Ok,” she said abruptly. “We can do your place. I’ll bring the movies, you make the food.”  
  
“What would you like to eat?”  
  
Elide stood. “Whatever you have at home is fine, really. Don’t go to too much trouble.” She stood and began to put her coat on. “I’m going to run home and grab some things, and I’ll meet you there in about an hour?” She leaned down and pecked a kiss on his cheek before he could answer, and they both ignored the hoots from Rowan and Fenrys. Lorcan looked around her shoulder and glared, but Elide grabbed his hand before he could give them the finger. “You’re at work!”  
  
“So are they!” Lorcan protested.   
  
Waving, Elide left, the bell over the door ringing with her departure.  
  
 *********  
  
Elide rang Lorcan’s doorbell just over an hour later, her canvas bag filled with movies instead of books, and lacking her backpack for once. Lorcan shouted from inside for her to open the door, and she was hit with the smell of food as soon as she entered: garlic and bread mingled with other scents. She dropped her bag at the entrance and walked to the kitchen, where the smells intensified. Lorcan had music playing softly - something she recognized from the cafe - and turned from the stove to greet her.   
  
“Hey, love.” He faced the stove again before noticing Elide’s blush of surprise.   
  
“Hey, Lorcan.” She sat on her stool - or the one she had sat on before, the one that she felt was going to become her stool - and asked what he was making.   
  
“Paella. Have you had it?”  
  
“Nope,” Elide admitted, “but I’ve always wanted to try it.”  
  
“Good.” Lorcan grabbed a bag of mussels from the sink and dumped them in the pan. “I hope you like seafood.”  
  
“I don’t really eat it much.”  
  
He handed her a glass of wine that he’d evidently poured before she arrived, condensation barely forming on the glass. “I hope it’s not because you hate it or have an allergy.”  
  
Elide sipped her rosé. “No, no allergy. I’m more of a packaged ramen girl, these days. But I thought I said not to go to any trouble?”   
  
“Oh, I had this stuff already, I was planning on making it this weekend.”   
  
“You just had the stuff for paella lying around the house? And you decided to share it with me?”  
  
“Well I couldn’t serve my girl the hotdogs I’ve got shoved in the back of the fridge.”  
  
His girl. Elide wasn’t sure how Lorcan could do that, call her his girl, love, make her dinner and serve her fine wine, if he was leaving and it all might turn out to be nothing. She didn’t mind if he wanted to move on with his life, but that didn’t take away the sting of that meaning that he would move on from her. But she knew this, Elide reminded herself. It was her choice to live these next two weeks as if nothing was happening. To take in each moment she could, in whatever manner she wanted.  
  
Lorcan wiped his hands on his apron in a way that felt relaxed, not like the angry, dismissive way when he did so at the cafe.  
  
“So Lorcan, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” She sipped from her glass.  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Why do you still work for Maeve? She doesn’t seem like someone you would respect. I mean I haven’t known you for that long, but I just get the sense that you really don’t like her. That none of you do.”  
  
Lorcan took a sip from his beer bottle. “Does anyone like their boss?”  
  
“Yes,” Elide said earnestly. “Manon is my boss, for all intents and purposes. And I really respect her. Even if she terrifies me sometimes. It’s because I want her approval, I want her to think I’m doing a good job, like I can make something of myself. She really believes in my project.”  
  
“And what makes you think I don’t respect Maeve in the same way?”  
  
Elide stared at Lorcan, straight-faced. “If you can sit there and honestly tell me that you don’t mind that she treats you like dirt, I’m going to hop off this stool and walk out that door. Besides,” she continued, “It’s not like you’re learning anything from her, right? You’re not…” Elide’s voice trailed off as she became dangerously close to accusing Lorcan of having no ambition. “I think you could find somewhere, someone, better. That’s all. Someone who could really help you in whatever career you want.” She took a large gulp of wine, hoping that her thoughts hadn’t become transparent.  
  
“I guess I’m not that picky,” Lorcan said, shrugging and turning back to the stove. He placed a lid on the pot and pulled two shot glasses from a cabinet. A glass bottle of deep green was next, and he opened it with a crack as the seal broke. “Let’s toast.”  
  
“Toasts are done with shots now?”   
  
“Well,” Lorcan said, pouring a dash of the liqueur into the pot before closing it again, “this goes well with the dinner.” Elide got a look at the label - Pernod - as Lorcan poured them a drink.   
  
He handed on to Elide. “Try this.”   
  
“Is that your toast?” Elide smirked, glad for the change of subject.  
  
“No. Let’s toast to…” Lorcan appeared at a loss for words. “What should we toast to, Elide?”  
  
“To good friends. And lovers, and the moment.”   
  
Lorcan held her gaze as he responded. “To lovers. And the moment.” They held their glasses aloft before drinking them in one go.   
  
Elide coughed at the burn as it went down her throat. “Oh my god, is that licorice?”   
  
“Indeed,” Lorcan said, coughing a bit himself.   
  
“Hm.” Elide tasted her lips and tongue as the intensity of the initial flavor wore off. “I think I like it? But maybe I’ll have some when we eat.”   
  
“No problem. What movies did you bring us?”  
  
Elide jumped from her stool and clapped. “I brought a variety! We can start with classics or go a bit newer. I decided against bringing _Delicatessen_ or _De rouille et d’os_ because they felt not really date material, you know?”  
  
“You choose,” Lorcan said. “You’re the expert. If you want to get it set up, I’ll dish up the food and then we can watch when we’re done eating.”  
  
By the time Elide came back into the kitchen - choosing the perfect movie was a task she took seriously - she had a plate of steaming paella, a fresh glass of rosé, and a fresh pour of Pernod. They clinked glasses and sipped the liqueur and Elide made tiny noises as she ate, thanking Lorcan profusely for the meal. Their fingers became dirtied from taking shrimp from their shells and discarding mussel shells on a plate Lorcan had set aside for them, but it added to the experience.  
  
“So,” Elide said when she could take a breath from eating, “where did you learn to cook like this?”  
  
“Travels.”  
  
Elide started to roll her eyes, but then stopped. This was more than likely a stock answer for Lorcan. He had answered her question, technically, but not shared anything about himself. She had plenty of practice doing the same.  
  
She began again. “Where?”  
  
“Oh right.” Lorcan paused. “Well, I went to Spain for a while. Not long, so actually I didn’t learn this there. One of my main jobs in New York was at a restaurant. The kind of place where it’s all VIPs and you can’t get in unless you know someone, and you’re going to pay five figures for dinner.”  
  
Elide nodded sagely. “I know the place.”  
  
Lorcan raised an eyebrow.   
  
“I mean my parents, they would go places _like_ that,” she clarified. “They would leave Aelin and me with a babysitter and all go out together. But continue.” She gestured with her fork and accidentally flung a grain of rice at Lorcan, which she picked up, grinning sheepishly.  
  
“So I was a back-waiter there, and had to learn about the menu. I’m pretty observant. I learned a lot just from being around all that stuff, those people.”  
  
“And the bartending, and the barista…ing?” Elide asked.  
  
“Picked up along the way. Like everything else. But Elide, I’m curious about something.”  
  
“Sure, what is it?” Elide munched away at her seafood and rice happily.   
  
“You can tell me to fuck off, if you want,” Lorcan warned.  
  
“Don’t worry. I will.” Elide set her fork down and took a sip of rosé.  
  
“What happened to your ankle? I’ve noticed you favor it, and the other week when we went ice skating you were worried about it.”  
  
Elide set her glass down and looked at Lorcan. “I hurt it when I was with my uncle. I fell down some stairs. He said we didn’t have money to go to a doctor, and as long as I could walk, I would be fine. It healed wrong.” She turned back to her food and took a bite. “Of course he was full of shit and had the money, but he had let my health insurance lapse. You know, typical irresponsible parenting. I started going to a physical therapist when I moved out.”  
  
Lorcan gripped his fork so hard his knuckles turned white. “And your uncle, where is he now?”  
  
Elide shrugged and gathered another forkful of saffron-colored rice. “Around, somewhere. I don’t really know right now. He has control of what my parents left me, so he could be anywhere in the world, with their money.”  
  
“And you’re ok with that?”  
  
“No, of course not. But I don’t get access until I turn 25, which is another year away. Besides,” she said, “I think I’d rather make my own way, than beg for anything from him. If he had any idea that I was worried about what will be left, he’d probably… I don’t know, launder it? He probably knows how that works.”  
  
Lorcan let a sigh out from his nose. “It’s a good thing he doesn’t live nearby.”  
  
Elide placed her hand on his knee. “It’s not your fight.”  
  
Lorcan nodded. “Movie time?”   
  
Elide jumped up again, nearly disturbing her plate. “Yes!”   
  
“I’ll clean up in here and meet you in a few minutes.”  
  
Elide wandered back into his living room and perused Lorcan’s bookshelves. There weren’t many books, and part of the shelves were covered in small figures and vases that he had undoubtedly picked up in various countries. So, he wasn’t totally without sentiment or an eye for the aesthetic. Elide sat on the couch and waited, listening to the clinking of dishes and the water running. When Lorcan joined her, he brought two fresh glasses of wine.   
  
With the remote in one hand and her glass of wine in another, Elide leaned into Lorcan on the couch. He wrapped an arm around her casually, or at least she assumed he was casual about it. For her part, she could nearly feel her heart beating out of her chest and wondered if her posture were relaxed enough, afraid if she shifted too much she would crush some vital part of him. His body still held something of the foreign about it, though he became more and more familiar every day.  
  
The moment the screen went dark and the movie began, her attention was split between it, and Lorcan’s reaction. She wanted him to like it, wanted him to like her, and somehow the two seemed irrevocably connected.   
  
Two hours, a few tears, and an uncomfortably-arousing sex scene later, Lorcan was standing to turn the lights back on. They talked about the movie for a few minutes, including Elide’s comments on the director and the book the film had been based on, when Lorcan’s tone became serious.  
  
“But Elide, there was actually a reason I wanted to talk to you the other day. When we went to the bar with Rowan and Aelin and then… We didn’t really get to it because I got um… distracted.”  
  
“Ok.” She pulled away, facing him.   
  
“I mentioned my lease to you the other day, if you remember.”  
  
“Oh yeah, of course,” Elide said, waving her hand to brush away the topic. “I’m leaving soon too, you know.” She turned away from Lorcan, leaning back against the couch.  
  
“Oh, you are?”  
  
Elide nodded into the darkness. “Yeah, I need to start filming my project, and that’s going to require traveling. I’ll be away for a few months, I think.”  
  
“Right.” Lorcan paused. “So what about right now?”  
  
“Now?”  
  
“Yeah, where does that leave us?”  
  
There were questions Elide wanted answers to and others she knew she couldn’t decide for herself. Whether she mattered enough to Lorcan for him to stay, or for him to find a more permanent position than what he had with Maeve, it was out of her control. But what she did know was what she wanted in that moment, after spending a wonderful evening with Lorcan. She knew she didn’t want to leave and go home to a cold bed, for them to wake up the next morning alone and knowing that neither of them had to be.   
  
“Well,” Elide said, making a show of contemplating. “I think that leaves us here on this couch. Just the two of us.” She stood. “You’ve never shown me your bedroom.”  
  
Lorcan followed, hooking his fingers in hers. “That’s right. Would you like me to give you the tour?”  
  
Elide nodded and led him away in the direction she assumed was right, their hands still connected. She pushed open a door at the end of the hallway, and was surprised to find it was a closet. Lorcan snickered behind her.   
  
“Bedroom?” She turned around and faced him. Lorcan pushed open the door to his right; next time she’d know better than to assume the last door was the bedroom. He ushered her inside, turning on the light to take it in. There was dark wood, a deep red, plush duvet on the bed, but otherwise it was as spare as the rest of his home.   
  
Elide sat on the edge of Lorcan’s bed, legs crossed. The apartment was nearly silent, but the noises from the street - the car horns, the sirens, the yelling - felt distant enough that Elide felt suddenly very, very alone with Lorcan. Before he leaned down to kiss her, she put a hand on his chest.  
  
“I’ve never done this.”  
  
“And you don’t have to now, if you don’t want.”  
  
“You could show me.” Elide glanced back and slid herself to resting on the pillows. “If you want.”  
  
Lorcan followed her onto the bed, tracing his hands over her body without removing a stitch of clothing.  His breath was hot on her as he hovered, both of them at the precipice. “I love you, Elide.” Lorcan looked at her as if surprised that the words had come from him, or that he’d had the audacity, or perhaps it was bravery.   
  
Elide wrapped her arms around his neck, securing him to her. “I love you, too.”   
  
What felt like an eternity later, they were pressed skin-to-skin, Elide straddling Lorcan’s hips. Elide had come already with his mouth between her legs, she had tasted every inch of him, but this final line hadn’t been crossed. She moved to slide onto him when he pulled her down, talking against her mouth. “Tell me what you want, Elide.” His voice was barely controlled, and she smiled at the hitch in his breath when she reached between them.  
  
“This. You.” She moved her hips in a way she had already figured out would be impossible to say no to, the slickness between her legs showing him just how ready she was.   
  
It was supposed to hurt. Every story Elide had seen and heard involved pain and then blood and comfort. She gasped as she adjusted to Lorcan inside of her, but quickly found the rhythm they both needed, and wondered why she had ever been afraid of this, with someone she loved.   
  
Falling asleep next to Lorcan wasn’t like Elide had imagined, either. There was no going home, wherever that was now. There was no need to leave, to be alone, at least for now. Tangled in Lorcan’s arms, her leg thrown over his hip and her face buried in this chest, Elide let herself breathe.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide tells Lorcan about her film project and her parents.

Elide lifted her hand and watched the way the early morning light crossed its lines and curves. There wasn’t much light coming through Lorcan’s heavy curtains, but enough so that a ray illuminated a sliver of her skin. She traced the lines that perhaps someone else could tell her the meaning of, and wondered if she would take those answers, if given the chance.

For the moment, Elide was content staying in bed next to Lorcan, taking every moment with him that she could. 

Lorcan breathed heavily next to her, but she didn’t want to look at him yet, or wake him. She felt different, but not. She felt that she finally understood why people might be invested in this feeling, why they might cast sidelong glances at others on the off chance that they might discover something in each other.

If she shifted under the sheets, Elide could feel her nakedness. Lorcan was pressed into her back, and if she tilted her head just so she could see his dark skin over her shoulder. But for now, Elide continued staring at her own hand, thinking about how her skin had changed and yet stayed the same, how yesterday she had been one version of herself but now she was another, and how it had nothing to do with what she had done with Lorcan, and everything to do with what they had said. 

Lorcan’s hand reached up to meet hers, curling his fingers around her palm and changing the plane of her future. 

“Good morning.” His lips were pressed to her ear and he kissed the shell of it. Lorcan’s arms tightened around her and Elide blushed to feel all of him against her naked backside. 

“Good morning.” She shifted onto her back so they could look at one another. 

Lorcan brushed his fingers up and down her arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Good. Sore,” she admitted. “But not too bad. How about you?”

“Happy,” Lorcan said. 

Somehow, it put a sharp pain in Elide’s heart. It didn’t seem fair that they could find this now, only to be two souls passing one another in the larger scheme of their lives. How could it be that someone could show up, leave such a mark, and only be there temporarily? Everything Elide knew about love and loss made it into a much larger event; “forever” was supposed to be a part of it, they weren’t supposed to let one another go once they were found.

“What is it?” Concern crossed Lorcan’s face. 

Elide was well aware that her emotions could be written on her face, if she wasn’t careful enough. She relaxed her features to soothe out any of the thoughts that might show there. “Nothing.” She reached up and held her palm to his cheek. “I’m glad I stayed. You are really warm at night, like a big furnace.”

“As long as I can be of service, you are welcome to stay.”

He took her hand from his face, kissing the tips of each finger in turn. 

“Well,” Elide said, clearing her throat, “my apartment is really cold.”

“Then let me warm you up.” He pulled her against him and began to nuzzle her neck, but his stomach growled. Elide giggled at the sound. “Do you want to go to breakfast,” he asked.

Elide sat up, holding the sheet across her chest. “You don’t ever need to ask me that question. The answer will always be yes.”

Lorcan wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “I know just the place.”

*****

Elide sat in front of a stack of pancakes so tall she had to sit up straight to see over them. Wiggling in her chair, she proceeded to smear on butter and drizzle syrup, but only small amounts at a time. 

Lorcan had chosen the place, another he had heard about through the grapevine of drunk and well-off customers. Elide hadn’t even bothered asking when Lorcan gave a look to the host and he seated them at a rather private table, ahead of the crowds of hungover college students who had gotten there first. For all his manners, or lack thereof, he seemed to hold some sway in the town.

Now, Elide may as well have forgotten that Lorcan sat across from her, but he certainly hadn’t forgotten her. Elide was practically putting on a show, humming a little song to herself, looking at her breakfast as if she could devour it with her eyes. It had only taken her a minute to order, and she clearly took her breakfast seriously. 

Lorcan’s order of bacon and black coffee had brought a critical eye from Elide, but she hadn’t had time to worry about what Lorcan was eating, merely asking him if that would be enough energy for the day. He had responded with something crude and unseemly, but she had laughed anyway. It was difficult to act offended when she was so happy. 

When their food came, Lorcan looked distinctly regretful at his choice, but didn’t say anything. After looking from his own bare plate to Elide’s overflowing pancakes, he picked up his fork and reached across the table to spear a bite of pancake from her plate. Elide slapped his arm away, sending the bite flying off his fork, across the table to land with a splat on the tiled floor of the restaurant. 

They both looked forlornly at the chunk of syrupy breakfast that no five-second rule would ever make acceptable to eat, then looked at each other with accusing eyes. 

“Is that really better than letting me have some?” Lorcan asked. 

“You had two options,” Elide said, holding up her fist. “One, order some yourself.” She held up one finger, followed by another. “Two, you could have asked politely. Don’t take food from my plate like a heathen.”

Lorcan grinned and munched a slice of bacon. “You don’t mind my heathen ways.”

“When it comes to my breakfast I certainly do.” They were quiet for a few minutes, each of them concentrating on their plates. After consideration, Elide spoke again. “Would you like some?” She turned her plate so that a particularly buttery part was close to him, and he didn’t miss the gesture.

“I would.” Lorcan took a bite, making a show of savoring his food. “There’s something else I want more, though.”

“What’s that?” Elide asked warily.

“Nothing inappropriate for breakfast. But you still haven’t told me. In a couple weeks, when you leave,” _and when I leave_ were the unspoken words that made Elide flinch, “what are you going to be doing? And where? I know a lot about your research, but not so much the… fine art part of your MFA.”

Elide set her fork down and smoothed her napkin in her lap. “My parents. They are the topic of the film I’m going to make.”

Understanding lit Lorcan’s expression. Of course this was what she would want to create, and why she had been so reticent to share the project.

“My dad had inherited his position, his money,” Elide continued. “He was at a charity event once, and my mom was a server. You know, going around in the black and white uniform, a silver tray, the whole bit. She was used to guys hitting on her, thinking she was part of the menu, so she was good at keeping guests at arm’s length. But my dad… He kept gorging himself on whatever her tray happened to carry, so by the end of the night he was ill. She found him sitting on a bench near coatcheck.”

Lorcan watched Elide as she spoke, her eyes lighting up with something he hadn’t seen before. 

“So then she took him home. She lived in this little place, worse than mine. She had graduated college already and was trying to get started with her work, and that was it. He fell in love the moment he saw her. He didn’t tell her until later that he had gotten ill that night because he was trying to get her attention. He kept eating everything from her tray just to keep her around, but he didn’t know what to say. So he just ate.” Elide giggled. “My mom liked to say that she took pity on him, which is likely true. He was crazy about her. He quit devoting so much time to work, and what he did do, they became partners in. My mom, she gave everything she had for other people.”

“What happened to them?” 

Elide hesitated. It was easy to talk about how her parents met. The subject gave her hope. It was another thing to tell the end of their story. “Can we pay the check first?”

Lorcan paid their bill, and they didn’t speak again until they were outside. Elide found a wooden park bench and leaned into Lorcan as she spoke. The air was cool but the sun was just bright enough to warm them through their heavy clothing, and Elide unbuttoned her wool coat even as she tucked into his side. 

“They were on a trip, with Aelin’s parents. They had donated money to a new hospital, and it was the opening, the whole black tie, champagne, let’s thank our benefactors type thing, so they shared a ride to and from. It wasn’t until they were on the way home that the crash happened, so at least they got to enjoy it. I was staying at Aelin’s house that night.”

The evening her parents had died was something of a blur. Elide had been excited for time with her friend, to do things like jump on the bed when the baby-sitter wasn’t paying attention, eating popcorn while screaming at scenes in movies that weren’t even that scary. Not when Aelin was with her. She’d been ten years old, and that night was like any other, blurring into the background along with every other happy scene from her childhood. There was before her parents had died and there was after, and Elide wished that she could remember more of the moments from before. It was the morning after that Elide remembered in horrifying detail.

She and Aelin woke up with blankets and pillows all over the floor of Aelin’s bedroom from their games the night before. Aelin was tapping Elide on the nose, asking when Elide’s parents were supposed to pick her up. When Elide checked the time, she realized that they should have come already. 

Walking downstairs, the girls followed the low, quiet sound of talking, assuming it was their parents, making their morning coffee in the kitchen. It wouldn’t have been the first time they woke to find their parents having breakfast in suits and ballgowns. Instead, their baby-sitter was crying, and two police officers looked at Elide and Aelin with pity. She and Aelin had clasped hands and faced the news together. Aelin gripped her hand so tight that it hurt, but she didn’t want to be let go of. They couldn’t look at one another until they were back in Aelin’s room, the door closed tight against adults. 

When they heard that Vernon was going to pick up Elide, she and Aelin vowed to run away together. But then Aelin was taken away by some distant relative before they could do a thing about it. 

They were children, after all. They were, Elide discovered, utterly helpless to change anything that had happened to them. 

“So I wanted to recreate the way my parents met,” Elide finished, hand in Lorcan’s on that bench, looking ahead at pigeons who picked at the sidewalk for scraps. “I wanted to tell their story, document it, I suppose. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I realized that I could. It always seemed magical, you know? There was so much hope in the way that they met. It felt so… happenstance. So random and yet exactly what everyone looks for in life. It could have been any other server there that night. My mom was covering for a sick co-worker. Or my dad might have been more forward and turned her completely off. Anything could have happened.”

“Is it what you look for, Elide?”

She shrugged against him. “I don’t know. I think about it a lot. What would happen if I meet someone who loves me as much as my father loved my mother. But it seems impossible. Or not impossible, just like…”

“Like what?”

Elide sighed. “Like it doesn’t matter. Like even I find someone and they love me, I have no control over it. It will end, and I won’t be able to stop it.”

A dove cooed nearby, and they sat listening to the sound of people nearby, yelling, laughing talking. There had been a time when Elide would have thought of her parents, how they would never sit on that bench or listen to those birds, or hold each other’s hands again. Instead, she thought about how she didn’t want that moment to end for herself. 

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Lorcan said. 

“How do you know?”

“I just think that for you, anything is possible.” 

Lorcan seemed surprised at his own optimism, and Elide squeezed his hand tighter before looking up at him. “But not for you?”

“Well, I haven’t exactly tried. I’ve never wanted anything before. Not the way I want you.”

Elide’s heart leaped to her throat as he leaned down to kiss her. 

“So what does that mean, Lorcan?”

He looked up into the sky. “I don’t know. I have to decide, I guess.”

Elide shifted away and patted the back of his hand. “In the meantime, we have work to do.”

Lorcan stood and offered Elide a hand. “So let’s get to it.”

*****

Elide returned to Orynth one month later. The deadline for when Lorcan was supposed to move had passed. They had texted and called one another every day at first, but as the days turned into weeks, Elide grew busier. She asked few questions, not wanting to be told when and if he was leaving. Either way his lease was up, so he had to go somewhere. It was perhaps easier to let him slip away quietly, than face the situation head-on. And he must have agreed, given that he gradually stopped asking her for details about anything other than her work, of which she had little to give. 

It had taken Elide weeks to realize it, but what she was looking for had been in Orynth all along. When she went to film the light was wrong, the spaces felt constricting, the script was off. None of the spots she had previously thought were perfect ended up looking right on film. She hadn’t told Lorcan, but she needed to come back and film in the cafe, or in some close facsimile. Orynth was home, and it was the only place her parents’ story could be told. 

Elide dropped her bags off at her apartment before going to see if Lorcan was home, the empty thud of the bags hitting the floor proof that she had come back nearly empty-handed. Manon had told her that part of the process was figuring out what wouldn’t work, but it still felt like defeat. 

Now, at the entrance to Lorcan’s building, Elide pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan. The weather had warmed a bit since she left, and she realized she had never known Lorcan in warm weather, and she wondered if she would have any memories of him in a park, or by the beach. 

Elide hesitated before ringing the bell to Lorcan’s apartment. It was like a bandaid, one she needed to rip off in person.

A man came from behind Elide, jostling her in his attempt to get to the door. He grunted at her and she apologized, moving out of his way as he entered in his code to enter the building. The door buzzed open and Elide grabbed it before it could shut. The man glanced at her, not caring that she was apparently breaking into the building, not being a resident herself. 

Elide took a breath and climbed the steps to Lorcan’s door. As she made it up the final steps, she saw that it was open, and for a moment Elide smiled. But then more than one voice came from the doorway, and her heart stopped. 

She peeked into the door and saw empty space. Well, empty but for the two cleaners who were preparing the space for its next resident. Gone was Lorcan’s couch, his bookshelf, and peering into the kitchen she could see the empty counter space where his various kitchen appliances had been situated.

“Can we help you with something?” A tall, thin man wearing overalls and yanking on a vacuum cord broke into Elide’s thoughts. “Are you here to take a look at the place? We’re still cleaning up, you should have made an appointment.”

“No,” Elide said. She turned to walk away. “You can’t help me.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elide discovers what happened to Lorcan while she was gone.

Elide kept her phone screen-side down on her nightstand, and when her alarm went off, she refused to look at her notifications. 

She’d gone back to her apartment after visiting Lorcan’s now-empty space, refusing to talk to anyone. It hurt more than she expected. It was as if all the talks she had given herself about how much she wouldn’t care, how she could let go when necessary, were for nothing. Her heart was going to ache in her chest either way, so burying her head under her pillow seemed like the logical next step. Pretending she didn’t have a phone by which Lorcan could contact her, if he wanted, was also another logical move. After all, they’d made no promises. 

But when she woke the next morning, Elide was surprised to find that she did, indeed, have the energy and desire to go outdoors, to dive back into her work. Her film project may have taken a different turn, as had her relationship with Lorcan, but it was nothing she couldn’t recover from. She hadn’t lost her parents, survived life with Vernon, and endured Manon’s critical gaze every week just to be done in by love. 

And that’s what it was, she realized with a twinge. 

Well, she could catalogue that with all of her other experiences of adulthood that hadn’t quite met her childhood expectations.

Given that her plans had changed, Elide first stopped to talk to Manon, running over the list of reasons she had to change her project over and over in her head as she walked until they became a jumbled mess. Luckily, Manon was less concerned with Elide’s emotional journey in coming to her decisions, and waved her away with a warning that she just needed to be prepared to explain it all when the project was complete.

The next step was to secure her new location for filming, and Elide wasn’t quite sure if that task would be easier, even if it didn’t involve Manon’s icy stare. At least beneath the way Manon looked at her, Elide knew that her advisor had her success at heart.

Maeve, on the other hand, had no reason to invest in Elide’s ability to complete her thesis. 

Elide walked to the cafe, cardigan unbuttoned, canvas bag slung over her shoulder, eyes squinting against the sun. In the months since she’d met Lorcan, winter had given way to a warm, wet spring. There were a few piles of snow left from snowplows and the ground in the park was too wet to have a picnic on, but the sun was warm enough that everyone was shedding their scarves and coats. 

Her new project would be a tribute not only to the perfect love her parents had shared, but all those could-be’s and what-if’s. When began to plot and outline her project, she had expected little of her own life to make its way into the film. With the way it stood now, she figured that including a bit of her own experience added something more bittersweet, less romanticized; she just needed to make sure that she could get through filming without noticing the Lorcan-shaped hole in her life, considering her new proposed location was the cafe.

Among Elide’s many epiphanies she’d had while away, she had realized that the only way she could complete her project, the only way to include a part of herself, was to do it here, in the town she had come to call home. 

Walking into the cafe, the bell above the door ringing, caused a frisson of tension to be released from Elide’s shoulders. She hadn’t realized how nervous she’d been to walk into it, though she’d told herself the entire way there that she was surprised at how at ease she felt. Of course, that had been a lie. 

Rowan was in his usual place at the register, and he nodded his head as she entered as if he’d been expecting her. Perhaps Maeve had told him that she was coming to talk. Indeed, the small placard that read _Reserved_ was at her table. Elide slid into her chair, letting her bag thud to the floor as she waited for Maeve. It shouldn’t have been too difficult to use the location. She’d work when the business was closed, make sure that everything was returned to the way she had found it before the cafe opened early in the morning. Manon had lectured her on all the different concerns the cafe owner might have, and Elide prepared herself to address anything Maeve might bring up. Well, beyond her general unhelpful attitude. 

And now, sitting there with nothing but her thoughts, most of the day’s anticipations behind her, Elide found herself recalling conversations she’d had with Lorcan. The way he sat in his chair backwards, as if the wooden slats separating them would form some sort of protection. The way he would bring her coffee silently, leaving it without even expecting acknowledgement or gratitude from her. 

Before she’d left, she had told Lorcan about her parents, and Aelin, and Vernon. She’d shared that final piece of herself, and so if he left, at least he would have the complete picture. At least she wouldn’t have any regrets about leaving anything out, any words unsaid. 

Elide thrummed her fingers on the tabletop as she waited for Maeve. Expecting the click of Maeve’s stiletto’s, Elide was instead startled by a deep, familiar voice coming from the back room of the cafe.

“You’re a prick, Fenrys.” There were two options for who might have uttered a statement like that, loudly, in front of customers, but Elide would have bet her laptop that she knew who it was. 

Lorcan shoved the curtain aside, stopping when he saw her. 

Elide sat up straighter, and she momentarily forgot why she was there.

Lorcan’s expression melted, the tension of anger replaced by soft surprise. 

Fenrys barreled out of the backroom behind Lorcan, continuing their conversation, but stopped short when he saw that Lorcan wasn’t listening to a word. 

It took far fewer strides for Lorcan to reach Elide’s table than she expected. Her heart beat much more wildly in her chest than she knew possible.

Elide stood to greet Lorcan, but instead of speaking, he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet. Elide buried her head in Lorcan’s chest as he buried his face in her neck, breathing her in deep. The world might have ceased to exist outside the press of his body against hers, and she would have been content to hear the news. 

For weeks Elide had been telling herself that if she never saw him again, she would be ok. Upon seeing his empty apartment, she told herself she was over him, that she could move on, now that she had answers. But breathing him in, those thoughts left her, and she recognized them for the lies they were. She wanted nothing more than to take Lorcan’s hand and lead him home, to bed, but there were words to be said before that.

After a minute, Lorcan loosened his grip, letting Elide slide to the floor. 

“I thought you were gone. I thought you’d left and you were done with this place. I was afraid to write, I’m sorry, I was just trying really hard to be okay with you being gone and so I thought-“ Elide stopped talking, noting the slight upturn of Lorcan’s mouth. 

“I missed you, too, Elide.” He gestured to the chairs and they sat, reaching across the table to entwine fingers. “I figured you were busy. I know how much your work means and I thought we’d talk when you got back.”

Elide frowned, lines appearing on her brow. “But your apartment. I went there.” She flushed.

“Yeah, my lease was up, remember?”

“Your lease?” Understanding came across her fact, and Elide laughed. “Your lease was up, and?”

“And my landlord had already signed a contract with new tenants. I couldn’t stay there, even if I had no plans of leaving town,” Lorcan finished. 

“Right.” Elide paused, thinking. Had her imagination really gotten the best of her, so she had lost all track of rational thought and things like leases and basic adulthood? “Where are you staying now? Are you leaving?”

“I’m crashing on Rowan’s couch for now, but it’s not very comfortable.”

“Aelin?”

“Aelin.”

Elide chuckled. She could only imagine a household in which Aelin woke up every morning to find Lorcan on her boyfriend’s couch. For a moment, she pitied Rowan. 

But more to the point, Lorcan was there, with her, and she’d been so concerned about protecting herself and he’d been so concerned about protecting her work time that they hadn’t spoken, and suddenly it all seemed very, very silly.

Then came the click of heels on the wood floor of the cafe, and Lorcan and Elide turned to see Maeve approaching. Elide wasn’t there to talk to Lorcan, after all, and she reached into her bag to pull out her list of notes, since she clearly couldn’t rely on her memory with the heat of Lorcan sitting nearby.

Maeve flicked her fingers, indicating that she wanted Lorcan to leave them. Instead, Lorcan moved his chair around the table to be seated next to Elide, forcing Maeve to choose the empty chair across from them. He let go of Elide’s hand and sat back in his seat, content to watch their conversation.

Elide stood and held her hand out to shake Maeve’s. “Hi, Maeve. Thanks for meeting with me.”

“Of course.” Maeve shook Elide’s hand with a firm, quick perfunctory movement. “I’m curious what it is you think you can do with a place this small, but then I don’t know anything about cinematography.” She smiled, and it would have looked kind on anyone else, anyone who wasn’t so clearly a cat playing with a mouse.

Well, Maeve thought Elide was a mouse.

Rowan came out from the back room, he and Fenrys talking quietly behind the counter so they could hear everything being said at the table. They were hardly subtle, but at least Maeve had her back to them.

Elide began to explain what she wanted to do, and she couldn’t help notice Lorcan next to her with his mouth closed and his eyes tracking any change in Maeve’s expression. Elide laid out each step, emphasizing the care she would take, that she understood her responsibilities. She didn’t mention how important or personal the project was, aware that those sorts of arguments wouldn’t get her very far. When she was done she let out a breath and sat back in her seat, glancing at Lorcan who gave her arm a small, reassuring squeeze. 

“Sounds like you have thought about everything,” Maeve said. It seemed to be a good start. “And there are fees involved in this kind of thing, of course,” she continued. 

“Fees?” 

“Of course.” Maeve swept away Elide’s concern. “You don’t think I’d let you in here for free, do you? There will be liability issues, utilities, cleaning, you know. I’m sure you know.” Maeve smiled, but her eyes expressed that certain type of joy that she experienced when crushing someone’s hope. 

“I don’t have the funding for that sort of thing,” Elide said, crestfallen.

“Then I suppose we have nothing else to say.” Maeve stood, smoothing her pencil skirt over her thighs. “If you suddenly discover a means of paying me, you know where to find me.”

“You can’t do that,” Lorcan blurted.

“This isn’t your place, Lorcan,” Maeve snapped. She looked at Elide. “As I said, you know where to find me if you come up with the money.”

“Then I’m done.” Lorcan’s voice was firm.

“Excuse me?” 

“I’ve been needing a change of scenery.” He shrugged. “This seems as good a time as any.” He placed an arm around Elide’s shoulder, a show of solidarity. 

“Then get out,” Maeve said. She’d lost pretense at civility, was grasping at some even footing in the conversation. However, Lorcan seemed to have overestimated his value as an employee as a bargaining chip. 

Elide looked to Lorcan, ready to tell him he didn’t have to quit over this, when her eye was drawn to the counter.

Rowan had walked away from Fenrys and was standing by the edge of the counter, leaning on his elbows. “Maeve is the manager, not the owner,” he said, speaking loudly enough to be heard across the room. He dried plates with a towel as he spoke. “Isn’t that right, Maeve? I believe the family that owns this cafe owns the whole building. Quite an enterprising family, from what I hear. And very invested in the arts.” He grinned at her, and Elide was glad to be on his good side in this particular discussion. Rowan set the dried plate down on the counter, stood, and crossed his arms. 

“I guess I’ll need to talk to the owner, then, about these supposed fees.” Elide looked at Rowan. Understanding passed between them. “I suppose I’ll have to call my cousin, then.”

Maeve started as if she’d been slapped. “This building belongs to the Ashryvers.”

“Yes, maybe one day I’ll introduce you to my fiancée,” Rowan said, “Aelin Ashryver. Elide’s cousin. She doesn’t have much of hand in the family business, but I’m sure she’d make an exception in this case.” 

Maeve’s mouth turned into a thin, hard line. 

Lorcan turned towards Elide, cutting Maeve entirely out of their conversation. “So,” he said. “What would you like for dinner?”

*********

Lorcan and Elide planned on meeting at the coffee shop before going out for dinner. Lorcan had hinted that he had somewhere special, but Elide didn’t know what it was. Only that he hadn’t been able to stop grinning like a child on Christmas when they made the plans. 

Elide bounded into the cafe, for the first time free of piles of books and her laptop. She practically skipped to the counter, where Rowan gave her a cup of coffee, and then sat at her table by the fireplace. It was one of those February days that warms up just enough to make you forget that it’s still winter, and the streets were wet with melting snow. Icicles were slowly disappearing, and even though everyone knew that the snow and the cold would be back, for the moment, Elide let her face feel the warmth of the sun coming in the window, closing her eyes against its rays. 

_C’était salement romantique_ was playing on the cafe’s stereo, and Elide knew that it was thanks to Lorcan. 

He came from the backroom, wiping his hands on a towel, grinning as if he had already seen her, knew she was there. Elide pretended to be engrossed in her book while she waited for him, but she didn’t read a word. When she heard the scrape of chair legs on the hardwood floors, she looked up. 

“So,” she said, putting her book down and reaching what was left of her coffee, “how is our friend Maeve?”

“Gone.” Lorcan smiled, his arms stretched and his hands clasped behind his head. “She doesn’t like being reminded that other people can tell her what to do.” 

“Hm.” Elide had little sympathy to spare for someone who would treat others the way Maeve had. “Are you ready to go?”

Lorcan nodded. “Just give me a few minutes.”

An hour later, they were strolling down the sidewalk. The sun was still in the process of setting, and painted the sky in shades of orange and pink. Elide wasn’t sure if she preferred the effect of the warm sunset or the coolness of the sparkling lights on the town. Each seemed to hold its own special charm. 

But they weren’t out to stroll around all night. She looked up to Lorcan and asked where they were going. 

“Oh.” He stopped walking and faced her. “I just found this great all-night Chinese restaurant. Thought we might want to try it out.”

Elide smacked his arm. “You did not!” She remembered that first date they’d gone on, when she had lied to get Lorcan out of having to work with Maeve. Such a small lie, to have led to all of this. 

“I sure did. It just barely opened so you might not have heard of it before.” Lorcan grinned before continuing down the cobblestone path. 

“Hmph.” Elide crossed her arms, but couldn’t help grinning.

He had indeed found the mythical restaurant, and they sat at a counter eating while Lorcan told Elide about his travels in East Asia, and she told him about her plans to travel once she had graduated. 

“I figure I can do it like you did, you know,” she said. “Just working wherever I need to, letting fate take me where it will.” She speared a dumpling with her fork, aware that they were once again heading into territory that would take them apart from one another.

Lorcan looked down at his own food and shook his head. “I don’t think you should do it like I did.”

“Why not?” Elide felt a hint of defensiveness creep into her voice. 

“Because I should go with you. I can show you the best places to visit, the best times to go. Plus, you’ll never be able to get your stuff in the overhead bin on the plane without my help.”

Elide laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth with her hand, her dumplings threatening to spray all over the table. When she’d adequately recovered, she turned to Lorcan and held out her hand. “Ok, so whenever I decide to take off for parts unknown, you’ll come with me.”

Lorcan took her hand and gave it a firm shake. “Deal.”

They finished their meal, but with one question looming over Elide’s head - where would they go afterward? And where would she find Lorcan tomorrow, or next week, or next month?

Lorcan walked Elide home. He’d invited her over, and as much as Elide wanted to see Aelin, she also wanted to prolong her time alone with Lorcan. Outside of her apartment, Elide stood on the first step leading to the entryway so she could look Lorcan in the eye. Her hand were shoved in the pockets of the light jacket she wore. “So what are your plans exactly, Lorcan? I’m sure you can’t crash with Rowan and Aelin much longer. It will end in blood.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that. It shames me to say I’m not sure whose.”

Elide chuckled. “I’d bet on my cousin, just so you know. It’s nothing personal. I just know her.” 

An awkward silence followed their quiet laughter. 

“You can’t stay there forever.”

Lorcan nodded. “I’d say that’s accurate.”

“So where are you going? I mean, what are your plans?”

“Do you mean tonight?”

Elide reached up and swatted at Lorcan’s arm, saying his name in protest. He caught her hand and pulled her forward until she was pressed against him. 

“I don’t mean tonight. Well, I do mean tonight,” Elide said, “but I also mean later. Are you going to stay in Orynth? Or am I just another of your adventures?”

Elide wrapped her arms around Lorcan’s waist as he brushed her hair from her face, taking a moment to formulate his next words.

“You are an adventure, Elide Lochan.” She stiffened in his arms. “But not in the way that you meant.” Lorcan brushed his lips over hers before speaking against her mouth. “Ask me to stay.”

“Lorcan.” Elide took a breath. “Stay with me.”

“And ask me to move in with you.”

“No.” Elide grinned. “I should definitely move in with you. My place is a shithole, remember?”

Lorcan laughed. “Fine, then ask if you can move into my place.”

“And sound like a beggar?” Elide pulled away and looked up at Lorcan. “What kind of girl do you think I am? Besides, I don’t fancy sharing Rowan and Aelin’s couch with you. Should we look for something together?” The words were so large in her throat that Elide could barely get them out. Who knew that such a question would take so much out of her?

“We’ll find something together, then.” Lorcan kissed the tip of her nose. “But in the meantime, invite me inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of this fic! Thanks for reading!! <3


End file.
